Encyclopedia Of Islam( 2009)

[ACTS ON FILE LIBRARY OF RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD RELIGIONS

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

Islam

| IJAN E. CAMPO

Encyclopedia of Islam

Copyright © 2009 by Juan E. Campo

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Campo, Juan Eduardo, 1950-
Encyclopedia of Islam / Juan E. Campo.

p. cm. — (Encyclopedia of world religions)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-5454-1
ISBN-10: 0-8160-5454-1

1. Islamic countries — Encyclopedias — Juvenile literature. 2. Islam — Encyclope-
dias — Juvenile literature. I. Title.

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CONTENTS

About the Editors and Contributors

ix

List of Illustrations and Maps

XV

Preface

xvii

Acknowledgments

xix

Introduction

xxi

Chronology

xxxvii

ENTRIES A TO Z

1

725

Bibliography

Index

731

ABOUT THE EDITORS
AND CONTRIBUTORS

Series Editor

J. Gordon Melton is the director of the Institute for
the Study of American Religion in Santa Bar-
bara, California. He holds an M.Div. from the
Garrett Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from
Northwestern University. Melton is the author
of American Religions: An Illustrated History , The
Encyclopedia oj American Religions , Religious
Leaders of America , and several comprehensive
works on Islamic culture, African-American
religion, cults, and alternative religions. He has
written or edited more than three dozen books
and anthologies as well as numerous papers and
articles for scholarly journals. He is the series
editor for Religious Information Systems, which
supplies data and information in religious stud-
ies and related fields. Melton is a member of the
American Academy of Religion, the Society for
the Scientific Study of Religion, the American
Society of Church History, the Communal Stud-
ies Association, and the Society for the Study of
Metaphysical Religion.

Volume Editor

Juan E. Campo, associate professor of religious
studies at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from the
University of Chicago's History of Religions

program. He specializes in the comparative
study of the cultural formations of Islam in the
Middle East and South Asia, sacred space and
pilgrimage, and political Islam in the contexts
of modernity. His research has taken him to
Egypt, where he has lived, studied, or taught
for nearly six years, as well as India, Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore,
Thailand, and Israel. Professor Campos first
book. The Other Sides of Paradise: Explorations
in the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in
Islam , won the American Academy of Religions
award for excellence, in 1991. He has edited
or contributed articles to a number of leading
reference works, including Mcrriam-Wcbster's
Encyclopedia of World Religions , Encyclopedia of
the Qur’an, and the Macmillan Encyclopedia of
Islam and the Muslim World. His current projects
include a comparative study of modern Muslim,
Hindu, and Christian pilgrimage.

Contributors

Fahad A. Alhomoudi holds a Ph.D. from McGill
University. He is the vice dean of academic
research at al-Imam Muhammad bin Saud
Islamic University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He
specializes in Islamic thought and Islamic law,
with a focus on its origins. He is the author of

IX

x Encyclopedia of Islam

Protecting the Environment and Natural Resource
in Islamic Law (published in Arabic, 2004). He
has presented numerous scholarly papers on
topics such as Islamic law and the modern state:
conflict or coexistence? and a critical study of
the translations of Hadith terminology.

Jessica Andruss earned an M.A. in religious stud-
ies at the University of California, Santa Bar-
bara, and is now a Ph.D. candidate at the
University of Chicago's Divinity School. Her
area of specialization is in medieval Jewish and
Muslim scriptural exegesis.

Jon Armajani earned a Ph.D. in religious studies
with a focus in Islamic studies and Near East-
ern studies from the University of California,
Santa Barbara. His areas of expertise include
modern Islam and Muslim-Christian relations.
He is the author of Dynamic Islam: Liberal
Muslim Perspectives in a Transnational Age and
assistant professor in the Department of The-
ology at the College of St. Bcncdict/St. Johns
University in Minnesota.

Rcza Aslan is assistant professor at the University
of California, Riverside and author of No god ,
but God: The Origins , Evolution , and Future of
Islam. He is also a research associate at the
University of Southern California's Center on
Public Diplomacy. His commentaries on Islam
and the Middle East have appeared in the Los
Angeles Times , the New York Times , the Wash-
ington Post , and the Boston Globe. He has also
appeared on a number of major network and
cable news programs.

A. Nazir Atassi is assistant professor of history
at Louisiana Tech University. He received a
Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa
Barbara. He specializes in Islamic and Middle
Eastern history, with a focus on early Islamic
society.

Anna Bigelow is assistant professor of religious
studies at North Carolina State University. She
received a Ph.D. from the University of Califor-
nia, Santa Barbara, in 2004. Her research focuses
on South Asian Islam, especially interreligious

relations and shared religious spaces. Her cur-
rent book project is called Sharing the Sacred:
Devotion and Pluralism in Muslim North India.

Vincent F. Biondo III is assistant professor of reli-
gious studies at California State University in
Fresno. He received a Ph.D. from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. His specialization
is the religious traditions of the West, with a
focus on Islam in America and Great Britain. He
is author of several articles and coeditor of Reli-
gion in the Practice of Daily Life (forthcoming).

Stephen Cory received a Ph.D. in Islamic history
from the University of California, Santa Bar-
bara. His specialty is the history of North Africa
and Islamic Spain during the late medieval and
early modern periods. He is currently an assis-
tant professor in history and religious studies
at Cleveland State University.

David L. Crawford is assistant professor of sociol-
ogy and anthropology at Fairfield University. He
received a Ph.D. from the University of Califor-
nia, Santa Barbara. He specializes in the study of
the societies of North Africa with a focus on the
Amazigh people of Morocco. He is the author
of Amazigh Households in the World Economy:
Labor and Inequality in a Moroccan Village and a
number of articles and chapters on contempo-
rary Moroccan society and politics.

Maria del Mar Logrono-Narbona received a Ph.D.
in history, with a focus on modern Middle
Eastern history, from the University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Barbara. She specializes in the
transnational connections between Syrian and
Lebanese diasporas in Latin America during
the first half of the 20th century. She is cur-
rently visiting professor at Appalachian State
University, North Carolina.

Caleb Elfenbein is a Ph.D. candidate in religious
studies at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. He specializes in Islamic studies, with
a focus on Islam in colonial and postcolonial
societies.

Kenneth S. Habib is an assistant professor in the
music department of the California Polytechnic

About the Editors and Contributors xi

State University, San Luis Obispo. His Ph.D. in
ethnomusicology is from the University of Cal-
ifornia, Santa Barbara, with specializations in
Middle Eastern and American popular music.
He also has taught music at Pomona College
and the University of California, Santa Barbara,
taught Arabic at Santa Barbara City College,
and served as assistant to the director of the
Middlebury College Arabic School.

Aysha A. Hidayatullah is a Ph.D. candidate in
religious studies at the University of Califor-
nia, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation research
examines newly emerging forms of feminist
theology in Islam. She has written on a number
of topics concerning gender and sexuality in
Islam, including the life of Mary the Copt, the
prophet Muhammad's Egyptian consort.

Josh Hoffman is a Ph.D. student at the Univer-
sity of California, Santa Barbara, where he
specializes in modern Middle Eastern history.
His fields of expertise also include premodern
Middle Eastern history, global/world history,
nationalism, political Islam, international
law, and human rights.

Shauna Huffaker is on the history faculty at the
University of Windsor, Canada. She holds an
M.A. from the School of Oriental and African
Studies in London and a Ph.D. from the Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara. Her spe-
cialization is in Islamic history, with a focus on
social history during the Middle Ages.

Amir Hussain holds a Ph.D. from the University
of Toronto. He is associate professor in the
Department of Theological Studies at Loyola
Marymount University. He specializes in the
study of Islam, with a focus on contemporary
Muslim societies. He is the author of Oil and
Water: Two Faiths , One God. His commentaries
and interviews on contemporary Islam have
appeared in the Los Angeles Times , the New
York Times , the Washington Post , and the Chris-
tian Science Monitor.

John Iskander is director of the Near East/North
Africa Division of Area Studies at the Foreign

Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State
in Washington, D.C. He holds a Ph.D. in Islamic
studies from the University of California, Santa
Barbara. His research interests include medi-
eval Islamic history, Muslim-Christian rela-
tions, and modern Egyptian saints.

Linda G. Jones received a Ph.D. in the history
of religions from the University of California,
Santa Barbara, with a focus on medieval Islam
and Christianity in Spain and North Africa. She
has edited and coauthored (with Madeleine
Pelner Cosman) the Handbook to Life in the
Middle Ages. She is currently Juan de la Cicrva
Researcher at the Spanish National Research
Council (Department of Medieval Studies) in
Barcelona, Spain.

Heather N. Keancy is an assistant professor
of history at American University in Cairo.
She received a Ph.D. from the University of
California, Santa Barbara. She specializes in
debates on religiopolitical legitimacy in Islamic
history and historiography. She has published
“The First Islamic Revolt in Mamluk Collec-
tive Memory: Ibn Bakrs (d. 1340) Portrayal
of the Third Caliph Uthman" in Ideas, Images,
and Methods of Portrayal: Insights into Classical
Arabic Literature and Islam, edited by Sebastian
Gunther.

Jeffrey Kenney received a Ph.D. in religious stud-
ies from the University of California, Santa Bar-
bara. He is a specialist in Islam and the author
of Muslim Rebels: Kharijites and the Politics of
Extremism in Egypt. He is currently a professor
at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana.

Ruqayya Vasmine Khan received a Ph.D. from the
University of Pennsylvania. She is a specialist
in Islamic studies. Her book Self and Secrecy
in Early Islam is forthcoming from the Univer-
sity of South Carolina Press (Studies in Com-
parative Religion). She is currently an associate
professor at Trinity University in San Antonio,
Texas.

Nuha N. N. Khoury is associate professor of the
history of art and architecture at the University

xii Encyclopedia of Islam

of California, Santa Barbara. She specializes in
the history of Islamic architecture and urban-
ism, medieval Islamic iconography, and modern
Arab art. Her research has appeared in Muqar-
nas: An Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture ,
the International Journal of Middle East Studies,
and the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. She also
contributed to Autobiography in Medieval Arabic
Tradition , edited by Dwight Reynolds.

Max Leeming is on the religion faculty of Vassar
College, where she teaches Islamic studies and
the history of religions, with a focus on sacred
space in the Islamic Middle East.

Laura Lohman received a Ph.D. from the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania and specializes in the
music of the Middle East. Her research on
Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum appears in
Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East,
North AJrica and Central Asia (Ashgate). She
is an assistant professor of music at California
State University, Fullerton, where she is com-
pleting a study of the singers late career and
reception history (Wesleyan University Press).

Gregory Mack is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute
of Islamic Studies at McGill University. He
holds an M.A. from the University of Toronto.
His specialization is Islamic law; his research
presently focuses on legal reforms in the Mid-
dle East.

Garay Mcnicucci is the associate director of the
Office of International Students and Scholars
at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
He has a Ph.D. in Middle East history from
Georgetown University. He is a past editorial
committee member and author for the Middle
East Report and teaches an introduction to Mid-
dle East studies and Arab cinema at the Univer-
sity of California, Santa Barbara. He has also
organized and led several summer seminars in
Egypt and Jordan for California K-12 teachers
and administrators, funded by Fulbright-Hays
Group Projects grants.

Tara Munson is a Ph.D. student in religious stud-
ies at the University of California, Santa Bar-

bara. She specializes in the study of Pacific Rim
religions, with a focus on the Philippines.

Kathleen M. O'Connor is assistant professor of
religious studies at the University of South
Florida. She specializes in Islamic studies, with
focuses on Islam in the African American com-
munity, Islamic medicine, and folk religion. She
has published articles and chapters on Islamic
healing systems and African American Islam,
and contributed to the Encyclopedia oj the
Quran. Her current book project is The Worlds
of Interpretation of African American Muslims.

Patrick S. O'Donnell holds an M.A. in religious
studies from the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and is an adjunct instructor in the
Department of Philosophy at Santa Barbara City
College. He has published articles, reviews, and
bibliographies in the following journals: The
Good Society, Globalization, Radical Pedagogy ,
Theory and Science, and Philosophy East & West.
Among the encyclopedias he has contributed
to are the Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic
Philosophers and the Encyclopedia of Love in
World Religions.

Kate O'Halloran is a writer and editor specializing
in world history. She holds an M.A. in modern
literature and languages (French and German)
from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and has
published several books for students.

Sophia Pandya is an assistant professor of reli-
gious studies at California State University,
Long Beach. She received a Ph.D. from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. Her
specialization is in the area of women, religion,
and the developing world, with an emphasis on
women and Islam. She has authored an article
on women and religious education in Bahrain.

Firoozeh Papan-Matin is the director of Persian
and Iranian studies at the University of Wash-
ington, Seattle. She has a master's in English
literature and a second master's and a doctor-
ate in Iranian studies from University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Barbara. Her dissertation research
is on 12th-century Islamic mysticism in Iran.

She has published articles on classical and
modern Persian literature. She is the author of
The Love Poems of Shamlu and The Unveiling of
Secrets Kash) al-Asrar: The Visionary Autobiog-
raphy of Ruzbihan Baqli.

David Reeves is a Ph.D. candidate in history at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. He
specializes in the history of Islam in the Soviet
Union, with a focus on Azerbaijan during the
Stalin era. He has been awarded a Fulbright-
Hayes Fellowship, a University of California,
Santa Barbara, Department of History Regents
Dissertation Fellowship, and a Social Science
Research Council Pre-Dissertation Fellowship,
among others, to conduct his research.

Mehnaz Sahibzada earned an M.A. in religious
studies from the University of California,
Santa Barbara, and an M.A. in Middle Eastern
studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Her areas of interest include Islam in America
and Asian American literature. She teaches
English at Moorpark High School in Southern
California.

Judy Saltzman is emeritus professor of religious
studies at California Polytechnic University
in San Luis Obispo. Her Ph.D. is from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. She
specializes in the history of Asian religions,
Indian philosophy, Vedanta, and modern Ger-
man philosophy.

Kerry San Chirico is a doctoral candidate in the
Department of Religious Studies at the Univer-
sity of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes
in the religions of South Asia, with a focus on
Hindu-Christian relations.

Leslie Sargent is a Ph.D. candidate in history at
the University of California, Santa Barbara. She
specializes in the history of the Russian Empire
and the Caucasus in the late 19th and early
20th centuries.

Bhaskar Sarkar is associate professor of film and
media studies at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. His Ph.D. is from the Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles. He specializes

About the Editors and Contributors xiii

in postcolonial media theory, Asian cinemas,
and Marxist cultural theory. He is the author
of Mourning in the Nation: Indian Cinema in the
Wake oj Partition (forthcoming, 2008) and has
published essays on philosophies of visuality
and Indian and Chinese popular cinemas in
anthologies and journals such as Quarterly
Review of Film and Video , Rethinking History:
Theory and Practice , and New Review of Film
and Television Studies.

Megan Adamson Sijapati is assistant professor of
religion at Gettysburg College. She received her
Ph.D. in religious studies from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. Her specialization
is in the religions of South Asia, with a focus on
contemporary Islam.

Mark Soileau received a Ph.D. in religious stud-
ies, with a focus on Islam, from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently
an assistant professor of religious studies at
Albion College in Michigan.

Varun Soni is currently a doctoral candidate in the
Department of Religious Studies at the Univer-
sity of Cape Town, South Africa. He received
a J.D. from the University of California, Santa
Barbara, School of Law, an M.T.S. from Har-
vard Divinity School, and an M.A. from the
University of California, Santa Barbara.

Eric Staples received a Ph.D. in history from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. He spe-
cializes in medieval and early modern Middle
Eastern history, and focuses on the social history
of early modern Morocco, the maritime history
of the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean regions,
and underwater archaeology. He is currently
involved in a project to build a replica of a medi-
eval Indian Ocean vessel under the auspices of
the governments of Oman and Singapore.

Nancy L. Stockdale is assistant professor of his-
tory at the University of Northern Texas.
She received her Ph.D. from the University
of California, Santa Barbara. Her specializa-
tion is modern Middle Eastern history, with a
focus on the history of Palestine, imperialism,

'Css*'}

xiv Encyclopedia of Islam

and gender studies. She is the author of Colo-
nial Encounters among English and Palestinian
Women , 1800-1948.

Jamel Velji is a Ph.D. student in religious studies
at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
He specializes in Islamic studies, with a focus
on Ismaili Shiism and the comparative study of
apocalyptic movements.

Michelle Zimney is a doctoral candidate in the
Department of Religious Studies at the Univer-
sity of California, Santa Barbara. Her research

focuses on the interaction of religion and poli-
tics in the Middle Eastern context, including
Algeria's civil conflict in the 1990s. Her most
recent research is on the Sayyida Zaynab shrine
in Damascus.

Z. David Zuwiyya is associate professor of Spanish
at Auburn University in Alabama. He received
a Ph.D. in Spanish medieval literature from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. He is
the author of Islamic Legends concerning Alex-
ander the Great.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

AND MAPS

Illustrations

Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud with
President Franklin D.
Roosevelt 3

Women selling produce in the
market 21

A tower in the city of Seville,
Andalusia 41

Photograph of an arabesque in
architecture 50
The Arabic alphabet 54
The Ibn Tulun Mosque,

Cairo 60

The Court of the Lions,
Granada 61
A man painting a ceramic
plate 64

A statue of Ataturk 69
Genealogy of Muhammad, the
caliphs and Shii imams 72
A mural showing Quran
verses 77

The al-Azhar Mosque 80
Bazaar in Morocco 97
A Muslim wedding
ceremony 104

Boats on the Nile River at
Aswan 110

Bookbinder in Cairo 1 12
Painting of a depiction of Al-
Buraq 118
Drawing of medieval
Cairo 122

Aerial view of Cairo's City of
the Dead 132
Muslim family 136
Shrine of the Chishti Sufi
Order, India 140
St. Catherine's Monastery and
mosque at Sinai 143
Movie billboards in Cairo,
Egypt 145
Coffeehouse in Cairo,

Egypt 155

Coptic Church, Cairo 167
Umayyad Mosque,

Damascus 180
Water containers on a street in
Cairo 194
Turkish meal 198
Female students at Hijaza
School, Upper Egypt 210
Modern Cairo 211

European Muslim community
Center 218

Poster of the evil eye 220
Mosque of al-Hakim of the
Fatimid dynasty 232
Aerial view of Fez 237
Friday prayer service 243
Flags of Afghanistan, Iran,

Iraq, and Saui Arabia 244
Men baking bread 247
Kasbah Garden, Chcfchaoucn,
Morocco 256

Tomb of Chishti saint in Delhi,
India 301

Marketplace commerce 302
Excerpt from the Quran,
written in Arabic and
Hindi 307
Murals on the side of a
residential house 311
City of Husayniyya 318
Statue of Ibn Rushd,

Cordoba 337
Visitors at a Muslim shrine,
India 349

Man reading in his sitting
room, Iran 363

xv

xvi Encyclopedia of Islam

Suleymaniye Mosque in
Istanbul 384

Aerial view of Jerusalem 391
Muhammad Alijinnah posing
with his sister 400
The Treasury, in Petra,

Jordan 403

Three men at Husayn Mosque,
Karbala 423
Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini 434
Tomb of Mahdi, Sudan 448
Mosque of Sultan Salahuddin
Abdul Aziz Shah,

Malaysia 451
Malcolm X 453
Tiles depicting Mecca 466
Poster portraying the city of
Medina 469

Schoolboys wearing clothing
of the Mevlevi Sufi
Order 472

Praying in a mihrab 473
Image of minarets, Cairo 474

Chefchaouen minaret,

Morocco 480
Mount Sinai 482
Traditional mosques, Cairo 485
Taj Mahal 489
Hilya poster 491
Mosque of Muhammad Ali,
Cairo 496
Men seated in a music
shop 505
College women from
the Muslim Students
Association 510
List of the 99 names of God, in
Arabic and English 516
Traditional decorations for
Navruz 525
Mosque of Sultan Ahmed,
Istanbul 539
Traditional prayer 557
Image of the Tree of
Prophets 560
Photograph of a Quran

manuscript page, 1 3th— 1 4th
century 570

Inside RumPs tomb 593
Poster of Chishti saints 599
Islamic centers in U.S.

cities 692, 693, 694, 695
Usama bin Ladin 697
Image of Wahhabi
horsemen 705
Turkish and American women
at a picnic 711
Visitors to shrine of a Chishti
saint, Delhi, India 723

Maps

Global Distribution of the
Muslim Population xxviii
Early Expansion of Islam, 622-
750 xxx

Historic Cairo 121
Historic Delhi 187
Stations of the Hajj 282
Historic Jerusalem 392
Shii Populations 625

PREFACE

The Encyclopedia of World Religions series has
been designed to provide comprehensive coverage
of six major global religious traditions — Buddhism,
Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholicism,
and Protestant Christianity. The volumes have
been constructed in an A-to-Z format to provide a
handy guide to the major terms, concepts, people,
events, and organizations that have, in each case,
transformed the religion from its usually modest
beginnings to the global force that it has become.

Each of these religions began as the faith of
a relatively small group of closely related eth-
nic peoples. Each has, in the modern world,
become a global community, and, with one nota-
ble exception, each has transcended its beginning
to become an international multiethnic com-
munity. Judaism, of course, largely defines itself
by its common heritage and ancestry and has an
alternative but equally fascinating story. Surviving
long after most similar cultures from the ancient
past have turned to dust, Judaism has, within the
last century, regathered its scattered people into a
homeland while simultaneously watching a new
diaspora carry Jews into most of the contempo-
rary worlds countries.

Each of the major traditions has also, in the
modern world, become amazingly diverse. Bud-
dhism, for example, spread from its original home

in India across southern Asia and then through
Tibet and China to Korea and Japan. Each time
it crossed a language barrier, something was lost,
but something seemed equally to be gained, and
an array of forms of Buddhism emerged. In Japan
alone. Buddhism exists in hundreds of different
sect groupings. Protestantism, the newest of the
six traditions, began with at least four different and
competing forms of the religious life and has since
splintered into thousands of denominations.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the six
religious traditions selected for coverage in this
series were largely confined to a relatively small
part of the world. Since that time, the world has
changed dramatically, with each of the traditions
moving from its geographical center to become a
global tradition. While the traditional religions of
many countries retain the allegiance of a majority
of the population, they do so in the presence of the
other traditions as growing minorities. Other coun-
tries — China being a prominent example — have no
religious majority, only a number ol minorities that
must periodically interface with one another.

The religiously pluralistic world created by
the global diffusion of the worlds religions has
made knowledge of religions, especially religions
practiced by one's neighbors, a vital resource in the
continuing task of building a good society, a world

XVII

'CssS'D

xviii Encyclopedia of Islam

in which all may live freely and pursue visions of
the highest values the cosmos provides.

In creating these encyclopedias, the attempt
has been made to be comprehensive if not exhaus-
tive. As space allows, in approximately 800 entries,
each author has attempted to define and explain
the basic terms used in talking about the religion,
make note of definitive events, introduce the
most prominent figures, and highlight the major
organizations. The coverage is designed to result
in both a handy reference tool for the religious
scholar/specialist and an understandable work
that can be used fruitfully by anyone — a student,
an informed lay person, or a reader simply want-
ing to look up a particular person or idea.

Each volume includes several features. They
begin with an essay that introduces the particular
tradition and provides a quick overview of its his-
torical development, the major events and trends
that have pushed it toward its present state, and
the mega-problems that have shaped it in the con-
temporary world.

A chronology lists the major events that have
punctuated the religions history from its origin to
the present. The chronologies differ somewhat in
emphasis, given that they treat two very ancient
faiths that both originated in prehistoric time, sev-
eral more recent faiths that emerged during the last
few millennia, and the most recent, Protestantism,
that has yet to celebrate its 500-year anniversary.

The main body of each encyclopedia is consti-
tuted of the approximately 800 entries, arranged
alphabetically. These entries include some 200
biographical entries covering religious figures of
note in the tradition, with a distinct bias to the
19th and 20th centuries and some emphasis on
leaders from different parts of the world. Special
attention has been given to highlighting female
contributions to the tradition, a factor often
overlooked, as religion in all traditions has until
recently been largely a male-dominated affair.

Geographical entries cover the development
of the movement in those countries and parts
of the world where the tradition has come to

dominate or form an important minority voice,
where it has developed a particularly distinct
style (often signaled by doctrinal differences), or
where it has a unique cultural or social presence.
While religious statistics are amazingly difficult
to assemble and evaluate, some attempt has been
made to estimate the effect of the tradition on the
selected countries.

In some cases, particular events have had a
determining effect on the development of the
different religious traditions. Entries on events
such as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (for
Protestantism) or the conversion of King Asoka
(for Buddhism) place the spotlight on the fac-
tors precipitating the event and the consequences
flowing from it.

The various traditions have taken form as
communities of believers have organized struc-
tures to promote their particular way of belief and
practice within the tradition. Each tradition has a
different way of organizing and recognizing the
distinct groups within it. Buddhism, for example,
has organized around national subtraditions. The
encyclopedias give coverage to the major group-
ings within each tradition.

Each tradition has developed a way of encoun-
tering and introducing individuals to spiritual
reality as well as a vocabulary for it. It has also
developed a set of concepts and a language to
discuss the spiritual world and humanity's place
within it. In each volume, the largest number
of entries explore the concepts, the beliefs that
flow from them, and the practices that they
have engendered. The authors have attempted to
explain these key religious concepts in a nontech-
nical language and to communicate their meaning
and logic to a person otherwise unfamiliar with
the religion as a whole.

Finally, each volume is thoroughly cross-
indexed using small caps to guide the reader to
related entries. A bibliography and comprehen-
sive index round out each volume.

— J. Gordon Melton

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In publishing the Encyclopedia of Islam l am
indebted to a great many people. Creating an
encyclopedia on any topic is necessarily a group
project, requiring the shared knowledge, insights,
perspectives, skills, and experiences of many.
The task is made even more challenging when it
involves religion, which encompasses so many dif-
ferent subjects — ranging from the historical, social,
political, and cultural to the spiritual, philosophi-
cal, and doctrinal. Moreover, the global nature of
Islam and the sometimes intense differences that
have arisen among Muslims and between Muslims
and non-Muslims during the nearly 1400 years of
its history pose additional challenges when seek-
ing to realize the ideals of comprehensiveness,
factual accuracy, and fairness.

In order to meet the challenges facing this
undertaking, I have made a particular effort to
draw upon the wide-ranging and deep scholarly
talents of the faculty, postgraduate, and graduate
students of the University of California, Santa
Barbara, especially those specializing in Islamic
and Middle East studies. My editorial assistants,
John Iskander (now at the U.S. Department of
State) and Michelle Zimney, helped me launch
the project and assisted with editing early drafts
of many of the contributed articles. Among the
more than 40 contributors, I am especially grate-

ful to Garay Menicucci (University of California,
Santa Barbara), Nuha N. N. Khoury (University of
California, Santa Barbara), Kathleen M. O'Connor
(University of South Florida), Amir Hussain
(Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles),
Jon Armajani (College of St. Benedict/St. John’s
University in Minnesota), Firoozeh Papan-Matin
(University of Washington), Mark Soileau (Albion
College), Anna Bigelow (North Carolina State
University, Megan Adamson Sijapati (Gettysburg
College), Aysha Hidayatullah (Emory Univer-
sity), Caleb Elfcnbcin (University of California,
Santa Barbara), Linda G. Jones (Spanish National
Research Council in Barcelona), Patrick O'Donnell
(Santa Barbara City College), Nancy L. Stockdale
(University of North Texas), Stephen Cory (Cleve-
land State University), Shauna Huffaker (Univer-
sity of Windsor), Heather N. Keaney (American
University in Cairo), and Reza Aslan (University
of California, Riverside). These individuals wrote
a number of articles for the volume, offering fresh
perspectives obtained from their recent research
in their respective fields of expertise.

Among other colleagues at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, who have provided sup-
port and inspiration are R. Stephen Humphreys,
the holder of the King Abd Al-Aziz ibn Saud Chair
of Islamic Studies; Mark Juergensmeyer, director

xix

'Css^

xx Encyclopedia of Islam

of the Orfalea Center for Global and International
Studies; Scott Marcus, associate professor of eth-
nomusicology; Kathleen Moore, associate profes-
sor of law and society; Nancy Gallagher, professor
of history; and Professors Dwight Reynolds, W.
Clark Roof, Catherine Albanese, and Richard
Hecht in religious studies. My approach to this
project was also guided by the humanism and
spirit of public service exemplified by our late
colleague Walter Capps and his wife, Lois. Over
the years, Richard C. Martin, Fredrick M. Denny,
Richard Eaton, Azim Nanji, Barbara Metcalf, Wil-
liam Shepherd, Steve Wasscrstrom, Bruce B. Law-
rence, Gordon Newby, Jane D. McAuliffe, Zayn
Kassam, Tazim Kassam, and scholars and teachers
at other colleges and universities, too many to
mention by name, have also provided invaluable
inspiration, directly or indirectly.

My deep gratitude also goes to Kendall Busse,
Ph.D. student in religious studies, who provided
skilled editorial support and helpful feedback
along the way, and to several undergraduate
research assistants: Maria Reifel Saltzberg, Has-
san R. Elhaj, and Hassan Naveed. Their work was
funded by the Freshman Seminar Program at the
University of California, Santa Barbara. Through
the years, my undergraduate students have con-
sistently affirmed my belief that education is an
ongoing process with mutual benefits that extend
well beyond the classroom.

Funding provided by Fulbright-Hayes Group
Projects grants presented me with opportuni-
ties to accompany two groups of California K-12
teachers and administrators to Egypt in 2003 and
2004. 1 benefited greatly from our workshop ses-

sions, travel experiences, and the conversations we
shared in Egypt, which enriched my understand-
ing of the K-12 curriculum and the challenges our
teachers face in instructing young people about
unfamiliar religions, civilizations, and languages. I
am especially obliged to Karen Arter, Frank Stew-
art, and Paul and Ruth Ficken for their encourage-
ment and interest in this publication.

1 am also grateful for the hospitality and
warmth extended to me by several cultural, inter-
faith, and religious organizations, including the
Turkish-American Pacifica Institute of Los Ange-
les and Orange Counties, the Interfaith Initiative
of Santa Barbara County, the University Religious
Center in Isla Vista, and the community of St.
Mark’s Parish Catholic Church in Isla Vista.

At Facts On File, I owe a great debt to Claudia
Schaab and J. Gordon Melton for valuable advice
and infinite patience in bringing the publication
to completion. Gordon graciously shared pho-
tographs of mosques taken during his travels
around the world.

Publishing this book would not have been
possible without the support of a wide circle of
family and friends extending from the United
States to Colombia (the land of my birth), Egypt,
and India. These include Shafik and Gilane, Galal
and Negwa, Amr and Janet, Mahmoud and Suhair,
Said and Soraya, Mehran and Nahid, Zavecni,
and Viji and Sujata. Above all, I am indebted to
my wife, Magda, to whom this book is dedicated,
for her unwavering love and encouragement in
good times and bad, and to our sons Andres and
Federico as they begin to follow their own paths
in the world.

INTRODUCTION

Among the worlds religions, few have attained the
historical, cultural, and civilizational stature and
diversity that Islam has. Since the seventh cen-
tury, when it first emerged in the western region
of the Arabian Peninsula known as the Hijaz, it
has been continuously adapted and carried forth
by its adherents, who call themselves Muslims, to
new lands and peoples in the wider Middle East,
Africa, Asia, Europe, and, more recently, to the
Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. Indeed,
the new religio-historical syntheses brought about
by the back-and-forth interactions of Muslims and
non-Muslims, and of the many different cultures
to which they belong, have had significant influ-
ence for centuries, not only upon the religious
experience of a large part of humankind, but also
upon the development of philosophy, the arts and
sciences, and even the very languages we speak
and the foods we eat. European scholars eagerly
sought to acquire the wisdom achieved by Mus-
lims in the fields of philosophy, mathematics,
astronomy, and medicine during the Middle Ages.
The different Islamicate architectural styles devel-
oped in a wide variety of locales, ranging from
Spain to sub-Saharan Africa, India, Central Asia,
and Southeast Asia, were adapted by non-Muslims
in many parts of the world. Spanish settlers and
immigrants brought "Moorish ' (Spanish-Islamic)

architectural styles to the New World, beginning
in the 16th century, which would later be adapted
by European and American architects for our
modern homes, hotels, cinemas, concert halls,
shopping centers, and amusement parks. Many of
our homes arc now decorated with beautiful rugs
and carpets that bear intricate arabesque designs
from Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, or Kashmir. Coffee
and sugar, the favored beverages of many Ameri-
cans and Europeans, arc both Arabic in origin and
were cultivated and enjoyed in Muslim lands well
before they reached the West.

Despite the record of some 14 centuries of
such achievements, knowledge about Islam and
Muslims has been very limited, especially in the
Americas. The modern study of Islam was mostly
relegated to a few elite universities until the
1980s, and it was hardly mentioned in social stud-
ies textbooks used by secondary school students
and teachers. What Americans knew of Muslims
was largely confined to those who had lived or
traveled in Muslim countries, met Muslim immi-
grants, or heard about famous African-American
Muslims like Malcolm X, the boxer Muhammad
Ali, or Karim Abdul Jabbar. What the average
person thought or imagined about the Near or
Middle East was based on the Arabian Nights
stories and motion picture images. The situation

XXI

xxii Encyclopedia of Islam

began to change in the 1980s as a result of the
Islamic revolution in Iran of 1978-79, the Leba-
nese civil war and the 1983 bombing of the United
States Marine barracks in Beirut, and the assas-
sination of Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat, an
American ally, by a radical jihadist group in 1981.
Even these developments, which were widely
reported in the news media, did not have a long-
term impact on public awareness or knowledge
about Islam and Muslims, although they inspired
a number of Hollywood movies based on stereo-
types. One important exception, however, was the
inclusion of lessons about Islam and the Middle
East in secondary school curricula that involved
consultations with experts and representatives of
local Muslim organizations.

This situation changed dramatically as a result
of the terrorist attacks conducted by al-Qaida
against the New York World Trade Center and
the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on Septem-
ber 11, 2001. Islam, especially Islamic terrorism,
permeated the media — most notably the 24-hour
cable news channels and talk radio. Politicians,
scholars, policy experts, and religious leaders gave
many interviews and talks about Islam, the Mid-
dle East, and religious violence. American colleges
and universities hired dozens of new lecturers and
professors specializing in Islamic studies and the
languages and histories of the Middle East. The
number of Middle East National Resource Centers
based at leading American research universities
was increased with the help of additional funding
by the U.S. Department of Education, which was
committed to enhancing public understanding
about the contemporary Middle East and other
regions where large Muslim populations live.
Increased resources were also provided for teach-
ing Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Pashto, and
other critical languages.

Today there still exists, despite these significant
steps forward, a widespread hunger in the United
States and many other countries for even the most
basic knowledge about Muslims — their religion,
histories, cultures, and politics. One unfortunate

consequence of the persistence of this knowledge
“gap" is that some have exploited it to spread inac-
curate, prejudiced views about Islam and Muslims
by citing anecdotal evidence or weaving together
scattered bits of factual information, heresay, and
even falsehoods. At times this is done to serve
some greater ideological objective, but at great
cost to the public’s ability to make wise judgments
of their own, based on accurate information and
scholarly expertise. The Encyclopedia of Islam is
part of a much wider effort undertaken by many
scholars and area studies experts to meet the
demand for accurate information about Islam, par-
ticularly with regard to its place in the contempo-
rary world. This undertaking is based on a growing
body of research involving the contributions ol
people who not only have knowledge and fluency
in the relevant languages but have spent extended
periods of time in the Middle East and other parts
of the world where Muslims live, work, and strive
to achieve what we might call “the good life.” The
reader is encouraged to explore the variety of top-
ics covered by this reference work and follow up
with more specialized readings listed at the end
of each entry and in the bibliography provided in
the back of the book. Before proceeding, however,
it will be worthwhile to consider some questions
anyone interested in exploring the subject of Islam
ought to be asking.

What Is Islam?

This is a question that Muslims have been
answering for centuries when it is raised in
their homes, schools, and in the circles of gifted
scholars, powerful rulers, and wealthy merchants
and businessmen. It is also a question posed by
many non-Muslims — never more than now, in
the first decade of the 21st century. The answers
given by Muslims, like those proposed by non-
Muslims, have varied greatly, depending on their
education, social status, background, and the
wider historical and cultural contexts in which
they live.

Rather than beginning with a single, defini-
tive response as to what Islam is, a more fruitful
approach is to begin with the proposition that
Islam is to a large extent what Muslims have made
of it based on their different religious sensibilities,
cultural identities, social statuses, and historical
circumstances. Many of the faithful start with
the Quran, the Islamic holy book, which they
believe to be a collection of revelations from God
(called Allah in Arabic) as delivered in the Arabic
language via the angel Gabriel to Muhammad
(ca. 570-632) over a 23-year period while he was
living in the western Arabian towns of Mecca
and Medina (formerly known as Yathrib). It is
about the length of the Christian New Testament,
consisting of 114 chapters and more than 6,200
verses. About Islam, the Quran itself declares,

Upholding equity, God, his angels and those
with knowledge have witnessed that there is
no god but he, the mighty and wise. Indeed,
religion [din] in God's eyes is Islam [ literally
“submission" | . Those who received the book
disagreed among themselves out of jealousy
only after knowledge had come to them.
Whoever disbelieves in Gods sacred verses,

(let him know that) God is swift in reckon-
ing. (Q 3:18-19).

This passage links Islam, the religion, to
belief in one God, in opposition to disbelief
(hi tfr), which will incur God's anger. It also states
that the revelation of God's book brings with it
both knowledge and disagreement among human
beings. The Muslims, therefore, in contrast to
disbelievers, are those who believe in Gods revela-
tions (the sacred verses) and submit to God's will.
The Arabic word muslim literally means "one who
submits.” The Quran promises Muslims rewards
both in this world and in the hereafter for their
belief and good deeds.

In addition to the Quran, Muslims also look
to the hadith — sacred narratives, usually short in
length, that contain accounts about what Muham-

Introduction xxiii

mad and his followers, known as his Companions,
said and did. The hadith, which number in the
tens of thousands, were systematically collected
by Muslims during the early centuries of Islam.
One of them, known as the Hadith of Gabriel,
provides another, more complex understanding of
Islam. According to this story, the angel Gabriel,
appearing as a man dressed in a pure white gown,
approached Muhammad while he was among his
friends and interrogated him about his religion.
When Gabriel asked Muhammad about Islam, he
replied, "Islam is that you witness that there is no
god but God and that Muhammad is God's mes-
senger; that you perform prayer; give alms; fast
(the month of] Ramadan; and perform the hajj
to the house [of God in Mecca] if you are able to
do so.”

In this statement, Islam is defined in terms of
its Five Pillars, thus underscoring the importance
of performing sacred actions, or worship, in this
religion. Even the first pillar, known as the sha-
hacJa (witnessing) is regarded as a sacred action,
because it involves pronouncing the two founda-
tional tenets of Islam: belief both in one god and
in Muhammad as a prophet of God. Recitation
of the shahada in Arabic occurs throughout a
Muslims lifetime. Muslims repeat it during their
five daily prayers, and even at the moment of
death, when it should be the last words spoken
by a dying person, or spoken by someone else
on his or her behalf. Islamic tradition regards the
other four of Islam's pillars — prayer, almsgiving,
fasting, and hajj — as forms of worship required of
all Muslims in order to attain salvation. The fine
points of Muslim worship were elaborated as part
of the Muslim legal tradition, known as sharia,
by qualified religious authorities known as the
ulama (sing, alim , “one who has knowledge").

The Hadith of Gabriel next takes up the
subject of belief, as Gabriel, acknowledging that
Muhammad has correctly defined Islam, contin-
ues his questioning by asking Muhammad about
iman (faith, believing). According to the story,
Muhammad replies that iman involves belief in

xxiv Encyclopedia of Islam

one God, his angels, his books, his messengers,
and the Last Day (Judgment Day), as well as pre-
determination. Again, Gabriel affirms the correct-
ness of the reply. The Quran mentions iman much
more than Islam, and even though the two words
differ slightly in their root meanings (security
for the first, safety for the second), many Mus-
lim commentators have regarded them as being
nearly synonymous. It likewise uses a related
term, nuimin, more that it uses the word muslim.
The aspects of faith Muhammad mentions in his
reply to Gabriel were subsequently elaborated
and debated for centuries by Muslim theologians,
known as the mutakallim s, or those who practice
kalam (literally “speech," but more precisely
translated as “dialectical theology").

By addressing both Islam and iman , the Hadith
of Gabriel teaches that religious practice and
belief arc interrelated aspects of Islamic religion —
one cannot be accomplished without the other.
But the Hadith of Gabriel is not content with only
mentioning these aspects of religion. It introduces
a third — ihsan. When asked about what this is,
Muhammad declares that it calls upon the faith-
ful to be mindful of Gods watchfulness and do
what is good and beautiful (hasan). Ihsan adds a
spiritual or aesthetic aspect to religion, one that is
implicitly connected with its other aspects — prac-
tice and believing.

During the Middle Ages, Christian church
leaders viewed Islam for the most part as idolatry,
or a false religion inspired by Satan. Such preju-
diced views can still be encountered in Christian
circles, unfortunately, although most Christian
leaders today are more likely to want to improve
relations with Muslims through inter-religious
dialogue and cooperation. Modern scholars spe-
cializing in the history and comparison of reli-
gions have thought about Islam from a different
set of perspectives. In Europe, in the 18th and
19th centuries, when religion began to be studied
in terms of the humanities and social sciences
rather than theology, some scholars sought to
exoticize it as an Eastern religion that stood apart

from the West and the religions of Judaism and
Christianity. They thought of it as a religion that
had been tainted by political despotism and irra-
tionality. Others classed it racially, as a “Semitic"
religion, in contrast to the religions of the Indo-
Europeans, which included Christianity. Rather
than calling it Islam, a term used by Muslims
themselves, many scholars in the 19th and 20th
centuries decided to call it Mohammedanism,
incorrectly assuming that Muhammad's status in
Islam was analogous to that of Jesus Christ in
Christianity or the Buddha in Buddhism. Despite
these missteps, and others, some religious studies
scholars concluded that it was more accurate to
classify Islam together with Judaism and Chris-
tianity as a Western religion, or as monotheistic
one, which recognizes a key belief in Islam (belief
in one God), as well as its historical relationship
with the other two religions. Scholars have even
grouped it with Christianity and Buddhism as a
“world" religion that has extended its reach glob-
ally through missionary work and conversion.

Today many scholars are studying Islam as an
Abrahamic religion, in relationship with Judaism
and Christianity. This designation is based on the
figure of Abraham (Ibrahim), about whom many
stories are told in the Bibles book of Genesis and
in the Quran. These sacred stories, or myths,
as they are called in religious studies scholar-
ship, also talk about Abrahams descendants,
whom Jews, Christians, and Muslims regard as
the spiritual ancestors of their communities.
While Muslims link their religion to Ishmael
(Ismail), Abraham's oldest son through Hagar
(from Egypt), Jews and Christians relate their
religion to Isaac (Ishaq), Abraham's son through
Sarah. In addition to sharing a sacred genealogy
that connects all three religions with Abraham,
there are other important “family resemblances"
that they share. These include 1) monotheistic
beliefs; 2) beliefs in prophets and supramundane
beings such as angels and saints; 3) possession
of holy books, revealed through prophets, that
serve as the basis for doctrine, worship, ethics,

Introduction xxv

and community identity; 4) a linear view of his-
tory from creation to Judgment Day, overlapped
by cyclical celebrations of weekly and seasonal
holy days; 4) claims to possession of a holy land
connected with stories about the origins of each
of the religions and the performance of pilgrim-
ages (religious journeys); and 5) belief in human
mortality, followed by resurrection, judgment, and
reward or punishment in the afterlife.

Identifying the family resemblances shared by
the three Abrahamic religions does not mean that
they are therefore identical, nor that they have
remained unchanged in history. Rather, it draws
our attention to their relative degrees of similarity
and difference and begs further inquiry concern-
ing how to account for resemblances and degrees
of difference, as well as the changes these religions
have undergone through time as a result of the
mutual interactions. Seen in this light, Islam can
be understood relationally, rather than isolated
from other religious traditions and communi-
ties. Muslims themselves understand their reli-
gion relationally, although in many respects their
understandings differ from those of non-Muslim
students of religion, as defined within modern
humanities and social science frameworks.

Who Are the Muslims?

Discussing what Islam is entails additional discus-
sion about who the Muslims are. As is the case with
Islam, there are different ways in which this ques-
tion can be answered too. One way to answer this
question is to note that from a basic Islamic point of
view, a Muslim is a person who submits to a single,
almighty, and merciful God, as delineated in the
Quran and sunna (precedent based on the hadith).
Collectively, Muslims understand themselves ide-
ally to be members of a single community of believ-
ers, known as the umma. The original basis for the
universal Muslim community was the community
founded by Muhammad in Medina after his emigra-
tion, or Hijra, from Mecca (about 260 miles south
of Medina) with a small group of mostly Arab fol-

lowers in 622. Muslims have come to see this event
as being so momentous that they use it to mark the
year one on their lunar calendar. The community in
Medina became exemplar) 7 for succeeding genera-
tions of Muslims, especially with regard to matters
of piety, worship, and law. The embodiment of the
umma as a territorial entity ruled by Muslims and
following the sharia, or sacred law, was expressed by
the concept of the dar al-Islam , or “house of Islam.”
This territorial understanding was superseded by
modern nation-states created in Muslim lands dur-
ing the 19th and 20th centuries.

In addition to viewing themselves as a commu-
nity united in their belief in God and his prophet,
Muslims also identify themselves with different
strands of Islamic tradition. The main ones are
Sunnism, Shiism, and Sufism. Sunni Muslims arc
the majority and today make up about 85 percent
of the total Muslim population (estimated to be
1.4 million in mid-2007, according to the Ency-
clopaedia Britannica). Their name comes from an
Arabic phrase meaning “the people of the sunna
and the community of believers" ( ahl al-sunna
wa’l-jamaa). Their Quran commentaries, hadith
collections, legal schools (the llanafi, Maliki,
Shafii, and Hanbali schools), and theological tra-
ditions are the ones most widely circulated and
respected. It is from their ranks that most Muslim
rulers and dynasties have arisen. Leading coun-
tries with Sunni majorities include Indonesia,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco,
and Nigeria.

The most prominent alternative, or sectarian,
form of Islam is that of the Shia, who today con-
stitute up to 15 percent of all Muslims, between
156 and 195 million. Known as the faction of Ali
( shiat Ali), Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law
(d. 661), they are found in many parts of the
world, but they constitute majorities in the mod-
ern countries of Iran (89 percent of its popula-
tion), Iraq (60 percent), Bahrain (70 percent), and
Azerbaijan (85 percent). Shii Muslims maintain
that the most legitimate authorities in all matters
are the Imams — select members of Muhammad's

xxvi Encyclopedia of Islam

family, beginning with Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661).
Since the seventh century the Shia have vied with
the Sunnis about who is best suited to govern
the community. In opposition to the Shia, Sunnis
favored the caliphs — leaders chosen initially by
consensus of community leaders on the basis of
their experience and public reputation. In general
the Shia believe that 1) their Imams have been
divinely appointed and inspired; 2) they are free
from sin and error; and 3) they are uniquely quali-
fied to provide religious guidance and insight.
According to the Shia, the world itself could not
exist without an Imam also being present in it.
The largest branch of the Shia, known as the
Twelve-Imam Shia, or Imamis, believe that all
but one of their 12 Imams suffered martyrdom
in defense of their faith and that the 12th will
return after a period of concealment ( ghayba ) that
began in 872 as a messiah (savior) to inaugurate
a reign of universal justice prior to Judgment Day.
The teachings of the Imams constitute the core of
Shii hadith, and their tombs in Iraq and Iran have
become sacred centers where pilgrims assemble to
obtain their blessings and intercession.

The Ismailis constitute another division of the
Shia, differing from the Twelvers with regard to
whom they count among their Imams (beginning
with their namesake Ismail, the elder son of Jaafar
al-Sadiq |d. 763 1), and the deference they give to
the authority of the living Imam, rather than to
those of the past. Even though they are only about
10 percent of the estimated Shii population over-
all, they have played a significant role in shaping
the course of Islamic history and intellectual life.

Sufism ( tasawwuf ) is a general designation
used for the mystical expressions of Islam, wherein
experiential knowledge of God and attainment of
unity in or with him are primary goals. The term
is based on the Arabic word suf ‘ or wool, which
was worn by Christian and Muslim ascetics in
the Middle East. Sufis also explain it in relation
to the Arabic word safa, which denotes the idea
of purity. Although the historical roots of Sufism
go back to individual ascetics who lived during

the first centuries of Islamic history, most Sufis
became organized into groups or orders known as
•‘paths" (sing, tariqa ) after the 11th century. Each
tariqa consists of spiritual masters (known as
shaykhs and pirs) who attract disciples and initi-
ate them into the mystical teachings and rituals of
the group. Sufis turn to the Quran and sunna for
inspiration and guidance, and trace the lineages of
their doctrines and practices to Muhammad and
the first generation of his followers. Most Sufis
regard the sharia as a foundational aspect of their
spiritual outlook, and their ranks are filled with
followers from across the spectrum of the Muslim
community — including Sunnis and Shiis, rulers,
merchants, scholars, peasants, and ordinary labor-
ers as well. There arc many different Sufi orders
with branches around the world, although there
are no precise statistics for them. They are often
credited with having contributed to the spread of
Islam, especially through the shrines containing
the remains and relics of Sufi saints. These holy
places have become the focal points for many
forms of popular devotionalism and pilgrimage.
Sufism has also produced a rich body of Islamic
literature, including mystical poetry, hagiography,
and devotional manuals.

In more recent times, other self-identified
groupings of Muslims have appeared, sometimes
labeled as radical Islamist and jihadist move-
ments. Also known as Islamic fundamentalists,
a designation that is declining in use because of
its imprecision, these groups are small in terms
of actual numbers with respect to the total Mus-
lim population. They have surpassed, however,
other Muslim groups in terms of the amount of
attention given to them by governments, inter-
national organizations, and the global media.
This is because of their involvement in activities
aimed at fighting perceived enemies of Islam at
home and abroad, which can take a heavy toll in
terms of civilian casualties and economic damage.
The central goal of many of jihadist groups is to
establish governments that will enforce Islamic
law, uphold public morality, and free Muslims

from the control of non-Muslim governments
and influence. In justifying their violent actions,
they often make use of the traditional Islamic
concept of jihad, which is based on an Arabic
word meaning ‘*to struggle or make an effort"
on behalf of ones religion and community. Many
Muslims criticize the way they interpret this con-
cept, which was elaborated in the Islamic legal
tradition before the modern era. Some jihadist
organizations, despite their violent tactics, win
popular support by providing needed social ser-
vices that legitimate governmental agencies fail
to provide. This is the case, for example, with the
Palestinian Hamas organization and Hizbullah
in Lebanon. Most of these groups act indepen-
dently, with logistical and economic assistance
from foreign sources. Al-Qaida, the organiza-
tion founded by Usama bin Ladin (b. 1957) and
Ayman al-Zawahiri (b. 1951), began in 1984 as a
service office for Arabs fighting against the Soviet
army in Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal
in 1989 and the fall of the Communist-led gov-
ernment, al-Qaida turned its attention to fight-
ing the United States and its allies, especially
Israel. To accomplish its objectives, it created a
loosely organized global network of cells, which
were involved in planning and executing attacks
against U.S. embassies in Africa, the USS Cole ,
and the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. mainland. Years
later, however, al-Qaida has still not been able
to win widespread support among Muslims, and
it remains at odds with other Islamist groups in
terms of both ideology and tactics.

The estimated number of Muslims in the
world today is second only to the number of
Christians (about 2.2 million) and larger than
other religiously defined communities, including
Hindus and Buddhists. Muslims represent more
than 20 percent of the worlds population (one
out of every five people on Earth). Like members
of these other religious communities, they also
think of themselves in terms of ethnicity and
nationality. Indeed, many may put their ethnic
and national identity ahead of their religious one.

Introduction xxvii

especially those who are more secular in outlook.
Muslims belong to more than 60 different ethnic-
groups consisting of a million or more members.
In addition, there are also 55 nation-states that
have Muslim-majority populations. As minorities
in countries like the United States, Britain, India,
and Australia, many think of themselves in terms
of the nationality of the country in which they
hold citizenship, or the one from which they have
emigrated.

The first generations of Muslims were pre-
dominantly Arab, and today Arabs still constitute
the single largest Muslim ethnic group. (It should
be noted, however, that not all Arabs are Muslims.
There are also Arab Christians and Jews.) By the
1 1th century, large numbers of Berbers, Persians,
and Turks had converted to Islam; together with
Arabs, they composed much of classical Islamic
civilization in the Middle East and North Africa.
Today only about one in four Muslims is an Arab,
and when all the Middle Eastern ethnic groups to
which Muslims belong are added, they amount to
less than half of the total of the world's Muslims.
Other major ethnic groups include the Javanese of
Indonesia, the Bengalis of India and Bangladesh,
and the Punjabis of Pakistan and India. More-
over, the nation-states with the largest Muslim
populations are located cast of the Middle East, in
Indonesia (207 million), Pakistan (160 million),
India (between 138 million and 160 million),
and Bangladesh (132.5 million). 1 Large Muslim
populations also live in the countries of sub-Saha-
ran Africa (Nigeria, for example has about 67.5
million Muslims) and Central Asia (Afghanistan
has about 31.5 million Muslims; Uzbekistan 24.5
million).

Muslims can therefore present themselves as
members of a united community of the faithful,
as members of particular Islamic subgroups (Sun-
nis, Shiis, Sufis, etc.), or as members of different

1 These figures arc based on 2007-08 estimates in the CIA
World Fact Book.

Global Distribution of the Muslim Population

Infobase Publishing

Introduction xxix

ethnic and national bodies. They may even take
pride in tracing their origins to particular regions
(like the Hijaz in Arabia), cities and towns, and
families and tribes. Education, profession, gender,
and social status also contribute to the formation
of Muslim identity. The form of Islam by which
Muslims live and in which they believe, therefore,
is something that is shaped by any combination
ol these factors. Muslim understandings of them-
selves and their religion have also been shaped
by their ongoing encounters with non-Muslims,
peaceful and otherwise, through the centuries.

The Expansion of Islam

Islam has long been a global religion, but this
was not the way it began. It first appeared dur-
ing the seventh century in the Hijaz, a remote
mountainous area along the western edge of the
Arabian Peninsula, far from the centers of urban
civilization. The dominant powers in the Middle
Eastern and eastern Mediterranean regions at the
time were the Byzantines, heirs to the Roman
Empire, and the Persians. These two empires
had been fighting continually with each other for
control of trade routes, land, and people. Within
less than 100 years after Islam's appearance, Arab
Muslim warriors had swept out of Arabia into the
Middle East and North Africa, bringing about the
downfall of Byzantium and Persia and inaugurat-
ing a succession of Islamic states that would rule
a large part of the known world until the collapse
of the Ottoman dynasty after World War I. At its
height in the 10th century, Muslim rule extended
eastward from Spain (known as Andalusia) and
Morocco to the eastern frontiers of Persia and
Afghanistan. On the basis of the success of the
Muslim conquests, it has become a commonplace
to assert that Islam is a violent religion that was
spread by the sword. Like all stereotypes, it is
based on some truth, mixed with distortion and
erroneous conclusions drawn from incomplete
evidence. Scholars specializing in the early his-
tory of Islam and its transregional expansion have

found that the historical factors involved were
much more varied and complex than the “con-
quest by the sword'' thesis would suggest.

Early Islamic historical sources and evidence
drawn from the Quran and the hadith indicate that
several different religious currents existed in Ara-
bia in the seventh century. These included native
Arabian religions, different Jewish and Christian
doctrines, and Zoroastrianism — the dualistic reli-
gion of ancient Persia. Muhammad ibn Abd Allah
(ca. 570-632), the historical founder of Islam,
was born in Mecca, a regional shrine town in the
Hijaz. After receiving what Muslim sources report
were his first revelations at the age of 40 while on
Mount Hira outside of Mecca, he drew from these
religious currents and launched a religious move-
ment that called for Meccans to worship one God
instead of many, perform acts of charity for the
weak and the poor, and believe that there would
be a final judgment when God would resurrect the
dead and hold each person accountable for his or
her righteous and wrongful acts. The blessed were
promised a place in paradise, the heavenly garden,
and the damned would suffer the tortures of hell,
the realm of fire. Muhammad attracted a small
following of converts from among his relatives,
friends, former slaves, and even some non-Arabs.
Other Meccans, particularly influential members
of the Quraysh clan, became hostile toward him.
This opposition resulted in the Hijra (emigra-
tion) of Muhammad and his followers to Medina
in 622. The community soon grew larger, thanks
to the conversion of Mcdinan clans to Islam.
They are remembered as the Ansar (helpers).
The earliest expansion of the Muslim community,
therefore, occurred peacefully and involved the
emigration of the first Muslims Irom their old
home to new ones. Emigration and resettlement
subsequently became important factors in the
spread of Islam. During this time, the commu-
nity also had to defend itself from attacks by the
Quraysh. After engaging in a successful series of
campaigns against his opponents, Muhammad
finally achieved the peaceful surrender of Mecca

© Infobase Publishing

Introduction xxxi

in 630. By the time of his death in 632, many of
the Arabian tribes had established alliances with
him and converted to Islam, setting the stage of
the subsequent conquest of Syria, Iran, Egypt, and
North Africa.

The rapid defeat of Byzantine and Persian
armies, weakened by years of internal dissension
and warfare, brought the Arab armies unimagined
new wealth and power. Led by the caliphs, suc-
cessors to the prophet Muhammad, the fledgling
Islamic state at first kept its capital in Medina,
but it later shifted northward to Damascus, Syria,
which remained the seat of the Umayyad Caliph-
ate from 661 to 750. Conquest of territories
beyond the Arabian Peninsula did not immedi-
ately result in mass conversions to Islam, how-
ever. Rather, the evidence indicates that Islam
remained a minority religion in these regions for
several centuries after the initial waves of con-
quest. Local populations who accepted Muslim
rule were given the choice of cither converting
or paying special taxes in exchange for accepting
the status of “protected” non-Muslim subjects
known as ahl al-dhimma, or simply dhimmis. The
Arab Muslim minority formed an aristocracy that
lived in its own cantonments near the communal
mosque and the ruler's palace. The offspring of
Arab Muslim fathers and non-Arab, non-Mus-
lim mothers were raised as Muslims but held a
second-class status among their coreligionists.
There were also non-Arab converts called the
mawali (clients), many of whom had been cap-
tured as prisoners of war during the conquests,
then granted their freedom upon conversion. The
majority of Muslim subjects, however, remained
Christians, Jews, and Zororastrians. As dhimmis,
they were secure in their property, communal life,
and worship as long as they paid taxes, remained
loyal to Muslim authorities, and did not either
try to proselytize to the Muslims or attack their
religion.

Weakened by dynastic conflicts, tribal rival-
ries, and local uprisings, the Umayyad Caliph-
ate was exterminated in 750 by a coalition of

forces, including Shiis and the mawali , from
Iraq and eastern Iran. A surviving member of
the Umayyads was able to escape to Spain, how-
ever, where he established the western branch
of the Umayyads in Cordoba, inaugurating an
era of extraordinary cultural florescence that
was due in large part to the fruitful interactions
of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. The defeat
of the Umayyads in Syria brought the Abbasids
to power. They were a party claiming descent
from al-Abbas, Muhammad's paternal uncle.
The Abbasid Caliphate, which lasted until it was
brought down by the Mongol invasion in the
13th century, moved the capital from Damascus
to Baghdad, a new garrison city that they had
founded on the banks of the Tigris River. It soon
became the leading center of commerce, the arts,
and Islamic learning of its time. The Arab rul-
ing elite realized that they had to share power
with Muslims who came from non-Arab origins,
as more of their subjects converted to Islam,
intermarried with them, obtained positions in
government, and became masters of the Arabic
language — the lingua franca of the empire — and
Islamic learning. It was during the Abbasid era
that Sunni and Shii doctrines and institutions
were systematized, Greek and Persian texts were
translated and discussed, and sciences such as
astronomy, geography mathematics, optics, and
medicine flourished.

Each of these developments contributed to
the spread of Islam beyond the Middle East to
Africa, the Indian Ocean basin. Central Asia,
and Southeast Asia during the ensuing seven or
eight centuries. Transregional trade south of the
Sahara, along the Silk Roads to Asia, and across
the Indian Ocean as far as Java resulted in the
establishment of Muslim trading communities
linked to local cultures through intermarriage as
well as commerce.

India is an excellent example of the differ-
ent ways by which Islam became established in
a new land. Peaceful Muslim trading colonies
linked to Arabia and Iraq developed along the

xxxii Encyclopedia of Islam

southern coast around the eighth and ninth
centuries. Ismailis from Persia introduced Islam
into northern India around the 10th and 11th
centuries by winning Hindu converts through
their missionary activities. They were followed
by Turkish and Afghan warriors who invaded to
pillage and conquer but ended up establishing
the Delhi Sultanate, which ruled much of the
north and the Deccan Plateau between the 13th
and 16th centuries. Contrary to the “conquest
by the sword" thesis, large numbers of Hin-
dus did not convert to Islam. Rather, scholarly
research indicates that there was an inverse rela-
tionship between where the centers of Muslim
political power were and where the most con-
versions occurred, which was on the political
periphery. The indigenous peoples of Bengal in
the northeast, for example, did not convert until
the 16th century, when rulers of the Mughal
dynasty encouraged the introduction of wet rice
agriculture in new land made available when
the Ganges River shifted its course eastward.
The agents of this development were Sufis and
Muslim scholars, who built mosques and shrines
that became magnets for the native people, and
educational centers for the dissemination of
Islamic knowledge and lore. As the historian
Richard Eaton has observed, rather than conver-
sion by the sword, Bengalis were converted by
the plow. 2

In summary, conquest was but one among
many factors that contributed to the expansion of
Islam. Emigration, trade, intermarriage, political
patronage, the systematization of Islamic tradi-
tion, urbanism, and the quest for knowledge must
also be recognized. Sufis, too, played a role in

2 Richard Eaton, “Approaches to the Study of Conversion to
Islam in India." In Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies ,
edited by Richard C. Martin, 108-123 (New York: One World
Press, 1987); , “Who Are the Bengal Muslims? Conver-

sion and Islamization in Bengal." In Understanding the Bengal
Muslims: Interpretative Essays, edited by Rafiuddin Ahmed.
25-31 (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001).

the spread of Islam along trade routes and even
to the remotest areas. Pilgrimage should also be
recognized as a factor, especially the annual hajj
to Mecca, which gathered scholars, mystics, mer-
chants, and ordinary believers from many coun-
tries together in one place. After performing the
required hajj rituals, pilgrims often took up resi-
dence in Mecca to study and meet with scholars
and mystics, but eventually they returned home
with stories about the Islamic holy land and new
insights about Islam to convey to their families
and neighbors.

These factors continue to be in effect today,
although in modern forms. They have been
involved in Islam’s spread into western Europe,
the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. Many
mosques and Islamic centers have opened in
these countries since the 1960s, and the Muslim
presence is being increasingly felt in schools,
the workplace, and the public sphere. Likewise,
global forces arc changing the ways Muslims
think about themselves and their religion — for
better or worse. This includes the colonization of
many Muslim lands by European powers during
the 19th and 20th centuries. The rapid pace with
which such changes have occurred, compared
with earlier times, has been assisted significantly
by the widespread availability of motorized trans-
portation and the emergence of the new print and
electronic media, which have closed the distances
that once posed limitations on the movement of
people, commercial goods, and, above all, ideas
and religious beliefs.

Scope of this Encyclopedia

The purpose of any encyclopedia is to be compre-
hensive, balanced, and up-to-date. It should also
provide readers with new information, familiarize
them with foreign concepts and terms, and direct
them to additional publications on the subjects
presented in it. It is a challenge to meet all of these
objectives in any single undertaking, particularly
one such as this, which is limited to one volume

Introduction xxxiii

about Islam, one of the worlds most important
religions. To meet this challenge, the Encyclopedia
of Islam emphasizes the following subject areas in
the entries it contains:

1. Islam as the religion of Muslims. This
includes entries on aspects of Islamic his-
tory, practice, belief, and learning, as well
as the major traditions — Sunnism, Shiism,
and Sufism. Topics concerning local Islamic
religious practices, in addition to expres-
sions of sacred space and time, are also
represented.

2. Islam as an Abrahamic religion. This area
includes entries that take up the interrela-
tionships and intersections that Islam has
had with Judaism and Christianity. Entries
also deal with Islam's encounters with non-
Abrahamic religions, particularly Hinduism
and Buddhism.

3. Islamicate civilizations and cultures , includ-
ing articles pertaining to urban life, lan-
guages, social and economic life, and the
arts and sciences.

4. Islam in the contemporary world. This
includes entries on most countries with
Muslim-majority populations, reform and
revival moments, Islamism, regional con-
flicts (especially the Arab-Israeli conflicts
and the Gulf wars), and issues pertaining
to civil society (for example, secularism,
human rights, democracy, and constitu-
tionalism). Attention has also been given
to Muslim minority communities and
organizations in the Americas, Europe,
Australia, New Zealand, and, to a lesser
extent, Asia.

In order to enhance the encyclopedias appeal
for use by students and teachers in secondary
schools, a number of entries dealing with edu-
cational subjects have been included, as well
as articles on animals (camel, cat, dog, horse),
children, comic strips and comic books, and the
cinema.

Format

Articles are listed alphabetically. Cross-references
have been provided within and at the end of
each entry in small capitals to assist the reader to
explore the variety of relationships the entry has
with others. It is also intended to help the reader
become more familiar with the many foreign terms
encountered in the study of Islam. In some cases
an entry and related cross-references are based
on native terms (for example, Allah, Jicjh, and
sharia); in other cases they are given in English
(for example, abortion, dietary laws, and women).
In the entry for Allah, for example, the reader is
invited to consult articles such as those on the
Quran, shahada , prayer, theology, and Muham-
mad. The entry for abortion refers the reader to
articles on topics such as death, afterlife, different
schools of Islamic law, children, and birth control
and family planning.

Each entry is also accompanied by a bibliogra-
phy for readers wishing to pursue a topic in more
depth. Publications listed in the bibliography are
exclusively in English, owing to the intended read-
ership of the encyclopedia, but readers arc advised
that a significant amount of excellent scholarship
is available in other languages, especially French,
German, Russian, and, to a lesser extent, Spanish
and Italian. These and more specialized publica-
tions can be found in the books and articles men-
tioned in the individual entry bibliographies and in
the references listed in the bibliography provided
at the back of the book. Works in the primary
languages of Islam, such as Arabic, Persian, and
Turkish, can also be found in these publications,
but Islamic texts in translation have been included
in entry bibliographies, where appropriate. The
reader is also encouraged to consult the publica-
tions listed under the heading “General References
and Atlases" in the back of the book. Some entry
bibliographies include articles published in Saudi
Aramco World , a magazine available on the Inter-
net and in print that covers cultural and historical
topics relating to the Middle East and Islam. Its

xxxiv Encyclopedia of Islam

format is similar to that of National Geographic ,
and it is especially well-suited for students and the
general public. It also provides updated listings for
museum exhibits and new publications.

A Note on Terminology,
Transliteration, and Translation

Because this Encyclopedia of Islam has been written
with secondary school students and the general
public in mind, I have gone to some lengths to min-
imize reliance upon academic technical vocabulary
and words from foreign languages. When techni-
cal terms have been used, it has been to enhance
clarity and understanding. An important exception
has been my adoption of two terms now widely
used by scholars in the fields of Islamic studies
and Middle East studies first proposed by Marshall
G. S. Hodgson in his monumental three-volume
work, The Venture of Islam. These are Islamicate
and Islamdom. Occasionally the words Islam and
Islamic are misleadingly or incorrectly applied to
phenomena that fall outside the boundaries of the
religion itself, resulting in the confusion of social
and cultural phenomena with religious ones. While
we know that the real-life boundaries between the
religious and the nonreligious are always shifting
and being negotiated, it is still helpful to recognize
that these boundaries nevertheless exist. Using
Islam and Islamic too loosely, moreover, obscures
the interrelationships that have developed histori-
cally between Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus,
and others in contexts where Islam was the domi-
nant religion but not the only one.

Therefore, I have adopted Hodgson's term
Islamicate in order to describe those aspects of
“Islamic” society, history, and culture that cannot
be attributed exclusively to the religion Islam. For
example, Islamic literature refers to writing tradi-
tions that involve the various religious beliefs,
doctrines, practices, laws, and traditions of Islam.
Islamicate literature , on the other hand, encom-
passes the variety of writing traditions, Islamic

and non-Islamic, that have flourished in contexts
where Muslims have held political power or con-
stituted a majority of the population, especially
prior to the 19th century. This kind of literature
can include secular poetry, philosophy, and scien-
tific writings, as well as the writings of Jews, Chris-
tians, and others in Arabic, Persian, and other
languages. Likewise, Islamic architecture refers to
those parts of the built environment connected
with Islamic religious practices, such as mosques
and madrasas (religious schools), whereas Islami-
cate architecture includes palaces, fortifications,
caravanserais, bazaars, dwelling places, and baths.
Less frequently, I use Islamdom instead of phrases
such as the Islamic world to refer to social domains
where Muslims prevail collectively, especially
prior to the 19th century. It is analogous to the
term Christiandom, which denotes social domains
where Christianity prevails.

Following modern standard Arabic pronun-
ciation, which is increasingly being accepted
for English transliterations of Arabic words, I
use Quran instead of Koran , Muslim instead of
Moslem , madrasa instead of madrassa , and Hijra
instead of Hegira. I have extended this principle
to Arabic names: for example, Muhammad instead
of Mohammed , Hasan instead of Hassan , Husayn
instead of Hossein or Hussein, Umar instead of
Omar, Usama instead of Osama. Conventional
English spellings for Mecca and Medina have
been retained for this publication. Instead of Shi-
ite, 1 use Shii (pronounced Shi-i), parallel to the
conventional use of Sunni (instead of Sunnite).
Shii is used as an adjective (for example, Shii
Islam, Shii law) and as a noun for an individual
member of the minority Shii branch of Islam (for
example, "He is a Shii"). The plural in this regard
is Shiis (pronounced Shi-is). 1 use the term Shia
(pronounced Shi-a), which is based on the Arabic
word for “party" or “faction,’' to refer to Shii Mus-
lims as a group or collectivity — the Shia. Shiism
is used to refer to the body of beliefs, rituals, doc-
trines, and traditions that define the Shii branch
of Islam (see the entry for this term).

Introduction xxxv

In order to make the Encyclopedia of Islam
more accessible to the nonspecialist, no diacriti-
cal markings have been used for foreign words.
Transliterations for ayn (') and hamza (') have also
been omitted, as has the terminal h, sometimes
used for the ta marbuta. Thus, shari ah is rendered
as sharia , sunnah is rendered as sunna, and ummah
as unmia. In cases where an ayn occurs in the
middle or end of a word, preceded or followed by
the vowel a, 1 have transliterated the word with a
double aa\ thus, Kaba is rendered as Kaaba, da w a
as daawa , and bid' a as bidaa.

Dates and Statistical Data

All dates given arc according to the Western cal-
endar. Where clarity is required, the abbreviation
B.c.E. is used for dates before the common era and

C.E. is used for common era dates. These temporal
demarcations are considered more suitable than
the older ones used for dates in the Western cal-
endar: B.c. (Before Christ) and a.d. (anno domini;
the year of Our Lord).

Statistical data given in entries for individual
countries (for example, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi
Arabia) are based on the latest 2007-2008 esti-
mates provided by the Central Intelligence Agency
of the United States in its World Fact Book (www.
cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html).
Other statistics have been obtained from a variety
of other sources. Although every effort has been
made to provide the most current and accurate
statistical information, the reader should be aware
that often statistical data is cither dated or affected
by political, social, or religious biases and circum-
stances. Care should be taken before making hard
comparisons based on statistical data.

CHRONOLOGY

fourth-sixth century

Arabia involved in conflicts between Rome/
Byzantium and Persia.

sixth-seventh century

Quraysh tribe rises to prominence in Mecca.

570 ?

Birth of Muhammad ibn Abd Allah in Mecca.

610

Muhammad receives first revelation at Mt. Hira,
near Mecca, and begins career as a prophet.

622

The year of the Hijra: Muhammad and the Mus-
lims migrate from Mecca to Medina.

630

Muhammad wins control of Mecca.

632

Death of Muhammad; death of Fatima, his
daughter; election of Abu Bakr as first caliph.

634

Death of Abu Bakr.

635

Conquest of Damascus.

636

Battle of Qadisiyya: Arab army decisively defeats
Persian army in Iraq

637

Conquest of Syria and the fall of Jerusalem.

640

Conquest of Persia.

642

Conquest of Egypt; foundation of Fustal (later
part of Cairo).

644

Death of Umar ibn al-Khattab, second caliph.

xxxvii

xxxviii Encyclopedia of Islam

653

Caliph Uthman authorizes collection and offi-
cial establishment of the text of the Quran.

655

Assassination of Uthman, the third caliph.

659

Muawiya, chief of the Umayyads, conquers
Egypt.

661-80

Damascus becomes new capital of Umayyad
dynasty under Muawiya.

New wave of conquest begins.

661

Death of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph and
first Shii imam.

Muawiya becomes caliph and founder of
Umayyad dynasty.

662

Revolt of the Khawarij.

680

Death of Muawiya. Martyrdom of Husayn, third
Shii imam, at Karbala, Iraq.

691

Building of the Mosque of Umar (Dome of the
Rock) in Jerusalem.

698

Arabic becomes official language of government
in the Islamic Empire.

700

Conquest and conversion of Berber tribes in
North Africa.

711

Tariq ibn Ziyad leads conquest of Andalusia
(southern Spain).

Muhammad ibn Qasim initiates Arab conquest
of Sind (India).

712

Muslim armies in Persia begin conquest of
Bakhara and Samarqand in Central Asia.

719

Cordoba becomes administrative capital of
Andalusia.

728

Death of Hasan al-Basri, Muslim ascetic and
teacher.

732

Battle of Tours, France.

749

Beginning of Abbasid Caliphate.

750

Abbasids capture Damascus, ending Umayyad
rule in Syria; Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah founds
Abbasid Caliphate.

754

Death of al-Saffah; Abujaafar al-Mansur becomes
second Abbasid caliph.

756

Establishment of Umayyad rule in Spain.

762-63

Baghdad founded by Caliph al-Mansur as the
capital of the Abbasid Empire.

Chronology xxxix

765

Death of Jaafar al-Sadiq, sixth Shii imam.

767

Death of Abu Hanifa, Iraqi jurist and eponym of
the Hanafi Legal School.

785-86

The building of the Great Mosque at Cordoba.

795

Death of Malik ibn Anas, jurist of Medina and
eponym of the Maliki Legal School.

798

Death of Abu Yusuf, co-founder of Hanafi Legal
School.

801

Death of female mystic Rabia al-Adawiyya.

804

Death of Shaybani, Kufan jurist and cofounder
of Hanafi Legal School.

808

Foundation of Fez in the Maghrib.

818

Death of Ali al-Rida, the eighth Shii imam.

820

Death of al-Shafii, founder of the Shafii Legal
School.

827

Abbasid caliph al-Mamun launches inquisition
to impose the Mutazili doctrines as the state
religious ideology.

839

Muslims capture Sicily and southern Italy.

855

Death of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, hadith scholar and
eponym of the Hanbali Legal School.

866

Death of al-Kindi, early Arab philosopher.

870

Death of al-Bukhari, author of the most respected
Sunni canonical collection of hadith.

874-939

Period of Lesser Occultation of Muhammad al-
Mahdi, the twelfth Shii imam.

909

Foundation of Fatimid Ismaili Shii dynasty in
North Africa.

910

Death of the Sufi teacher al-Junayd.

912-61

Golden age of Umayyad rule in Andalusia.

922

Crucifixion of the Sufi al-Hallaj in Baghdad.

923

Death of the Quran commentator and historian
al-Tabari in Iraq.

929

Qarmati Shiis attack Mecca and remove the
Black Stone from the Kaaba.

xl Encyclopedia of Islam

935

Death of al-Ashari, Sunni theologian, in Bagh-
dad.

939

Twelfth Imam enters Greater Occultation accord-
ing to Twelve-Imam Shii doctrine.

941

Death of al-Maturidi, Sunni theologian, in
Samarqand.

950

Death of the philosopher al-Farabi.

951

Qarmati Shiis return the Black Stone to the
Kaaba.

969

Beginning of Fatimid Ismaili Caliphate in Egypt;
Cairo founded.

970

Fatimids found Al-Azhar mosque-university in
Cairo.

997-1030

Reign of Mahmud of Ghazna, who raids north-
west India (Punjab, 1001-21) and puts the con-
quered territories under Islamic authority in the
name of the Abbasid caliph.

1021

The Fatimid caliph al-Hakim disappears/dies;
Druze religion begins.

1037

Death of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), philosopher and
physician.

1062

Almoravids conquer Morocco.

1064

Death of Ibn Hazm, Andalusian jurist and
scholar.

1067

Nizam al-Mulk founds the Nizamiyya, a Shafii
college, in Baghdad.

1071

Battle of Manzikert, a decisive defeat of Byzan-
tine armies by Seljuq Turks.

1086

Almoravids conquer Andalusia.

1091

Normans recapture Sicily and end Muslim rule
there.

1096

Pope Urban 11 launches the First Crusade to
conquer Jerusalem.

1099

Crusaders capture Jerusalem, ending the First
Crusade.

1111

Death of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, philosopher
and theologian.

1145

Almohad dynasty establishes foothold in Anda-
lusia.

Pope launches Second Crusade.

Chronology xli

1166

Death of Sufi master Abd al-Qadir al-J ilani in
Baghdad.

1171

End of the Fatimid dynasty; Salah al-Din founds
the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt.

1187

Saladin retakes Jerusalem from crusaders.

1192

Muhammad of Ghur leads Muslim conquest of
northern and eastern India.

1193

Death of Salah ad-Din, Ayyubid sultan.

1198

Death of Ibn Rushd (Averrocs), Andalusian phi-
losopher and jurist.

1199

Conquest of northern India and Bengal by
Ghurids.

1203

Founding of Mongol Empire by Genghis Khan.

1206

Ghurids establish the Delhi Sultanate in India.

1209

Death of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, theologian.

1215

Mongol invasion of the Middle East begins.

1230

Death of Muin al-Din Chishti, leading Suli saint
in India.

1234

Death of Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi, Sufi
teacher and founder of the Suhrawardi Sufi
order.

1240

Death of Ibn al-Arabi, Sufi philosopher, in
Damascus.

1250-1519

Mamluk dynasties rule Egypt and Syria.

1258

The Mongols sack Baghdad, ending Abbasid
Caliphate.

1260

Mongols arc defeated by the Mamluks of Egypt
at Ayn Jalut in Syria.

1273

Death of Jalal al-Din Rumi, Sufi poet and
teacher, in Konya.

1320 ?

Death of Yunus Emre, Turkish mystic and
poet.

1325

Death of Nizam al-Din Awliya of Delhi, Sufi
saint of the Chishti order.

1328

Death of Ibn Taymiyya, Hanbali jurist.

'Css*')

xlii Encyclopedia of Islam

1338

Death of Hajji Bektash, Sufi saint.

1369

Death of Ibn Battuta, famed traveler and Maliki
jurist.

1370-1405

Timur (Tamerlane) establishes Timurid Empire
in Central Asia, the Middle East, and South
Asia.

1380-1918

Ottoman Empire rules much of the Middle East
and eastern Europe.

1406

Death of the historian Ibn Khaldun.

1453

Constantinople (Istanbul) falls to Ottomans and
becomes the new Ottoman capital; Byzantine
Empire ends.

1492

Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabelle of Castile con-
quer Granada, ending Muslim rule in Andalusia.

1501

Ismail I establishes the Safavid dynasty in Persia.
Twelve-Imam Shiism becomes the state religion
of Iran.

1511

The Saadi Sharifs establish Alid power in
Morocco.

1517

Ottomans conquer Egypt.

1520-66

Reign of the Ottoman sultan Sulayman the
Magnificent.

1526-1858

Mughal dynasty rules India.

1529

Ottomans lift first siege of Vienna and retreat.

1550

Islam spreads to Sumatra, Java, the Moluccas,
and Borneo.

1556-1605

Reign of Akbar, Mughal emperor.

1571

Christian fleet defeats Ottoman navy at Lcp-
anto, marking the end of Ottoman dominance
in the Mediterranean region.

1596

Shah Abbas makes Isfahan the capital of the
Safavid Empire.

1603

Mughal emperor Jahangir begins rule in India.

1605

Death of Akbar.

1609-14

Expulsion of the Muslims from Spain.

1624

Death of Ahmad Sirhindi, Indian mystic and
reformer.

Chronology xliii

1627

Mughal emperor Shah Jahan begins reign.

1640

Death of Mulla Sadra, Persian mystic and phi-
losopher.

1654

Shah Jahan completes construction of Taj
Mahal.

1658

Aurangzcb deposes his father, Shah Jahan, and
begins reign as Mughal ruler.

1683

Ottomans lift the second siege of Vienna and
retreat.

1699

Death of Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi, leading
Shii scholar.

1707

Death of Aurangzcb, inaugurating era of rapid
Mughal decline.

1722

Safavid rule in Iran effectively ended by Afghan
invasion.

1750

Wahhabi movement, led by Muhammad Abd
al-Wahhab, arises in Arabia.

1757-65

English East India Company wins control of
Bengal, India.

1762

Death of Shah Wali Allah.

1798-1801

French expedition under Napoleon Bonaparte
to Egypt.

1792

Death of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of the
Wahhabi movement.

1801

Wahhabi raiders attack and plunder Karbala in
Iraq.

1804

Usman dan Fodio establishes Islamic state of
Sokoto in central Sudan.

Wahhabi forces capture Medina.

1805

Muhammad Ali appointed viceroy of Egypt by
Ottomans.

1806

Wahhabi forces occupy Mecca.

1812-16

Egyptian troops conduct successful campaign to
end Wahhabi control of Arabia.

1816

British withdraw from Indonesia, restoring it to
Dutch rule.

1817

Death of Usman dan Fodio, African religious
and political leader.

'Css^

xliv Encyclopedia of Islam

1818

British rule extends throughout India.

1826

Ottomans liquidate the Janissaries and abolish
the Bektashi Sufi order.

1830

French forces occupy Algeria, ending 313 years
of Ottoman rule.

1832-47

Abd al-Qadir, Algerian religious scholar, leads
unsuccessful war against French colonial forces.

1850

Execution of Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi,
founder of Babi movement in Iran.

1857

Sepoy Rebellion against English East India
Company rule sweeps northern India.

1858

British forces suppress Sepoy Rebellion and end
Mughal dynasty; British Crown rule replaces
English East India Company rule.

1863

Bahaullah appears in Iraq claiming to be the
manifestation of Gods will, founding the reli-
gious community of the Bahais.

1869

Suez Canal opened.

1870

Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abd Allah appears as
the Sudanese Mahdi.

1876

Britain purchases shares of the Suez Canal and
becomes involved in Egyptian affairs.

1881

Muhammad Ahmad declares himself Mahdi in
northern Sudan.

Death of the first Aga Khan, Ismaili leader in
India.

1882

British forces occupy Egypt.

1885

Death of the Sudanese Mahdi.

1891-92

Tobacco revolts against British business interests
in Iran.

1897

Death of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muslim
reformer and activist.

1898

Death of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Muslim modern-
ist reformer.

Death of Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the
Ahmadiyya movement.

1899

Fall of Mahdist state in the Sudan and its occu-
pation by Anglo-Egyptian troops.

1900-08

Construction of the Hijaz railway to Mecca as a
pan-Islamic project.

1901

Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud captures Riyadh.

Chronology xlv

1901

French forces occupy Morocco.

1905

Death of Muhammad Abduh, Egyptian religious
scholar and reformer.

Massacre of Armenians in eastern Turkey.

1905-11

Constitutional revolution in Iran.

1906

All-India Muslim League founded in India.

1909

Establishment of the Anglo-Persian Oil Com-
pany.

1912

The beginning of the Muhammadiyya reform
movement in Indonesia.

1916

Sykes-Picot agreement signed, defining British
and French spheres of influence in the post—
World War 1 Middle East.

1916-18

Sharif Husayn of Mecca leads Arab Revolt
against the Ottoman Empire.

1920

Syria and Lebanon become French mandate
territories.

1921

Faysal ibn Husayn is made king of Iraq.

Abd Allah ibn Husayn becomes king of Trans-
jordan.

1922

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolishes the Ottoman
Turkish sultanate.

1922-32

Conquest of Libya by Italy.

1924

The Turkish caliphate is abolished.

Abd al-Aziz and his Wahhabi army conquer
Mecca and Medina.

1925

End of the Qajar dynasty in Persia; Rcza Khan
seizes power in Persia and establishes the
Pahlavi dynasty.

1928

Turkey is declared a secular state and adopts
Latin alphabet.

Hasan al-Banna founds the Muslim Brother-
hood.

1932

Iraq granted independence by League of
Nations.

Creation of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1935

Iran becomes the official name of Persia.

Death of Rashid Rida, Syrian religious
reformer.

1938

Death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of
modern Turkey.

Standard Oil of California discovers oil in Saudi
Arabia.

xlvi Encyclopedia of Islam

1938

Death of Muhammad Iqbal, Indian intellectual
and poet.

1941

Iran invaded by British and Russian forces, and
Reza Khan is forced to abdicate in favor of his
son Muhammad Reza Shah in Iran.

Jamaat-i Islami founded in India by Abu al-Ala
Mawdudi.

1942-45

Japanese occupy Indonesian territories and
Malay Peninsula.

1943

Lebanon becomes independent from France.

1945

End of World War II. Foundation of the Arab
League.

1946

Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria obtain indepen-
dence from Britain and France.

1947

Partition of India results in creation of Paki-
stan.

1948

Establishment of the Jewish state of Israel; Arab-
Israeli war.

Death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, first leader of
Pakistan.

1949

Assassination of Hasan al-Banna, leader of the
Muslim Brotherhood.

Indonesia becomes independent.

1950

Emirate of Jordan officially renamed the
Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan.

1951

Libya becomes independent.

1953

Egyptian Free Officers depose monarchy and
establish a republic.

Mossadeq government in Iran overthrown in
coup sponsored by the United States and Brit-
ain.

1954

Beginning of Algerian war of liberation against
France.

Jamal Abd al-Nasir becomes president of
Egypt.

1956

Morocco and Tunisia become independent of
France.

Britain, France, and Israel precipitate Suez Cri-
sis by attacking Egypt to control the canal.

1957

Daawa Party of Iraq founded. Malay Federation
wins independence from British rule.

1958

Revolution in Iraq under Abd al-Karim Qasim
overthrows Hashemite monarchy and estab-
lishes the Republic of Iraq.

1962

Algeria becomes independent from France.
Muslim World League founded.

Chronology xlvii

1963

Islamic Society of North America founded in
Plainfield, Indiana.

1965

Malcolm X, leader of the Nation of Islam, assas-
sinated.

1966

Death of Sayyid Qutb, radical Islamic ideo-
logue.

1967

Israel defeats Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the
Six-Day War.

1969

Colonel Muammar Qadhdhafi overthrows King
Idris of Libya and establishes Libyan Arab
Republic.

Organization of the Islamic Conference
founded.

1970

Egyptian President Jamal Abd al-Nasir dies and
is succeeded by Anwar al-Sadat.

1971

Bangladesh (former East Pakistan) becomes
independent from Pakistan.

1973

October War (Yom Kippur War) between Israel
and a coalition of Arab states, led by Egypt and
Syria.

1974

Death of Amin al-Husayni, grand mufti of Jeru-
salem and Palestinian nationalist.

1975-90

Lebanese Civil War.

1975

Death of Elijah Muhammad, leader of Nation ol
Islam among African Americans; Warith Deen
Mohammad takes charge of the movement and
renames it World Community of Islam in the
West (changed to American Muslim Mission in
1978 ).

1977

Death of Ali Shariati, Shii religious thinker.

1978

Anwar al-Sadat, Egypt's president, shares Nobel
Peace Prize with Manachem Begin, Israel's prime
minister.

1979

Iranian monarchy replaced by a revolutionary
Islamic republic with Ayatollah Ruhallah Kho-
meini as its supreme leader.

Death of Abu al-Ala Mawdudi, founder of the
Jamaat-i Islami of India and Pakistan.

Sacred Mosque in Mecca seized by Sunni reviv-
alists proclaiming arrival of the Mahdi.

Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.

1980-89

Iran-Iraq War.

1980

Execution of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-
Sadr, leading Shii authority in Iraq.

1981

Assassination of Egyptian president Anwar al-
Sadat by radical Islamists.

xlviii Encyclopedia of Islam

1982

Israeli invasion of Lebanon; Hizbullah founded
in Lebanon.

Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
founded with Iranian support.

1987-93

First Palestinian intifada against Israeli occu-
pation.

1987

Hamas founded in Gaza.

1988

Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian author, wins the
Nobel Prize for literature.

Salman Rushdie publishes The Satanic Verses,
sparking Muslim protests around the world.
Al-Qaida founded in Afghanistan.

1989

Death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Shii religious
scholar and revolutionary leader; Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei becomes supreme leader of Iran.
Death of Fazlur Rahman, leading Islamic scholar
in the United States.

Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan.

1990

Iraqi forces at the command of President Sad-
dam Husayn invade and annex Kuwait, causing
Gulf War 1.

1991

United States leads international coalition forces
in a successful campaign to expel Iraqi forces
from Kuwait.

1994

Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Lib-
eration Organization, shares Nobel Peace Prize
with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

1996

Taliban, a guerrilla force of Islamist Afghan stu-
dents, seizes Kabul.

2000 -

Second Palestinian intifada (known as "al-Aqsa
Intifada *) against Israeli occupation (ongoing).

2001

Religious militants connected with al-Qaida fly
hijacked airliners into the New York World Trade
Center and Pentagon; U.S. and coalition forces
invade Afghanistan and depose the Taliban.

2003

U.S. and coalition forces launch Gulf War II by
invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Husayn and
the Baath Party.

Shirin Ebadi, Iranian human rights advocate,
wins Nobel Peace Prize.

2005

Iraqi national elections bring Shii political coali-
tion (United Iraqi Alliance) to power.
Muhammad al-Baradci, director of the Interna-
tional Atomic Energy Agency, wins Nobel Peace
Prize.

2006

Orhan Pamuk, Turkish author, wins Nobel Prize
in literature.

Muhammad Yunus, Bangladeshi banker and
economist, wins Nobel Peace Prize.

Saddam Husayn executed.

2007

Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in
Iraq changes name to Supreme Iraqi Islamic
Council.

Benazir Ali Bhutto, Pakistan political leader,
assassinated.

ENTRIES A TO Z

Abbasid Caliphate ( 750 - 1258 )

The Abbasid Caliphate was a long-lived Sunni
dynasty that ruled the Islamicate empire for five
centuries and set the standard for Muslim rulers
who came later. It took power in a tremendous
revolution in 750 that ended the Umayyad Caliph-
ate in Damascus. It was during the Abbasid era,
particularly until the 10th century, that the for-
mative elements of Islamicate civilization were
put into place. Among the achievements of this
era were a massive project of translation, thanks
to which Greek philosophy was made available
to the Arabs (and later to Latin Europe), the
flowering of Arabic prose and poetry, the forma-
tion of the major schools of Islamic law, and the
consolidation of Shii and Sunni communities with
distinctive traditions.

The Abbasids came to power on the back of
a masterful propaganda campaign that targeted
those elements in the Islamicate empire whom
the Umayyads had alienated, especially those who
harbored various degrees of loyalty to the family
of Ali: the nascent Shia. They put forward the
claim, later largely accepted, that a caliph must
come from the clan of Hashim, which included
Muhammad and Ali, but also Abbas, Muhammad's
paternal uncle and the ancestor of the Abbasids.

Only after they had attained power did they make
it clear that the revolution they had led was for
their own family, not that of Ali, crushing the
messianic expectations of those who had awaited
a descendant of Ali to come to the throne. The
messianic expectations generated by the struggle
between the Abbasids and Umayyads, as reflected
in hadiths that can be dated to this period, remain
even now an important part of Islamic apocalyptic
beliefs regarding portents of the Last Hour and
Judgment Day.

During the heyday of the Abbasid Caliph-
ate, the Islamicate Empire stretched from India
and the Central Asian steppes in the east to the
western coast of northern Africa. But the heart of
the empire was always Iraq, where they had their
capital, Baghdad, and what is now Iran. Iraq, in
particular, was extensively irrigated and therefore
was a rich source of agricultural produce and the
resulting tax revenue. By the ninth century, major
parts of the empire were functionally indepen-
dent, and this gradual breakdown of central rule
only increased as time went on. Nonetheless, the
provincial rulers, ever anxious to legitimize their
rules through official recognition from the caliph,
largely maintained their symbolic allegiance to
him. Even when these rulers were, in fact, much

1

2 Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud

stronger than the caliph, few considered declar-
ing themselves independent outright, in order to
maintain an aura of legitimacy as supporters of
the traditional caliphate. The clear exceptions to
this were the Fatimid dynasty (909-1171) and the
Umayyads in Andalusia.

The Abbasids thus had little more than sym-
bolic power by the middle of the 10th century,
except for a limited revival of their political for-
tunes in the 12th and 13th centuries. They were
finally crushed by the invading Mongols, who
took Baghdad in 1258, wiping out most mem-
bers of the Abbasid family and destroying their
legendary capital, Baghdad. While a few of the
Abbasids escaped to Egypt, where a figurehead
caliphate survived under the tutelage of the Mam-
LUK DYNASTY, they no longer held even the moral
AUTHORITY that they had had when in Baghdad.
Today, the Abbasids remain important as a symbol
of the former greatness of the Islamicate civiliza-
tion, and as a model for what a united Muslim
community might again attain.

See also adab ; Arabic language and litera-
ture; Mahdi; Shiism.

John Iskander

Further reading: Paul M. Cobb, White Banners: Conten-
tion in Abbasid Syria, 750-880 (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2001); Taycb El-Hibri. Reinterpreting
Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid and the Narra-
tive of the Abbasid Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 1999); Hugh Kennedy. The Prophet
and the Age of the Caliphates (Harlow: Longman, 2003);
J. J. Saunders, A History of Medieval Islam (New York:
Barnes & Noble, 1965).

Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (Ibn Saud) (1880-1953)

charismatic founder of the modern Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia and political patron of the conservative Wahhabi
sect of Islam

Abd al-Aziz was the descendant of the A1 Saud clan
of central Arabia that had formed a strategic alli-
ance with the revivalist leader Muhammad ibn Abd

al-Wahhab (1703-92) and established a tribal state
that ruled much of the Arabian Peninsula during
the 18th and 19th centuries. In a period of political
fragmentation, he revived Saudi control of the pen-
insula after conducting a raid from neighboring
Kuwait in 1902 that resulted in the capture of the
town of Riyadh, the future capital of Saudi Arabia.
He then conquered other regions of the peninsula
with the assistance of the Ikhwan (Brotherhood),
a Wahhabi fighting force recruited from among
Arab tribes. In 1926, after the fall of Mecca and
Medina, religious authorities recognized Abd al-
Aziz as king of the Hijaz and sultan of Najd, the
western and central regions of Arabia, respectively.
With the support of tribal allies, ulama, and the
British, he defeated a rebellion among the Ikhwan
in 1927-30, and in 1932, he renamed his realm the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Abd al-Aziz was a skillful statesman and leader
in times of peace, in addition to being a man of war.
He consolidated his power through consultations
with close advisers and merchants, intermarriage
with influential tribes and clans, and generous
disbursements of state revenues. Although he had
ruthlessly suppressed the Ikhwan, he maintained
solid ties with Wahhabi ulama and gave them
control of the country's religious and educational
affairs. They were not capable of seriously oppos-
ing him as he moved to modernize the kingdom,
however. He granted Standard Oil of California
oil exploration rights in 1933, and he persuaded
the ulama to allow for the introduction of radio
transmissions and the telephone. Oil was first dis-
covered in 1938, and Abd al-Aziz quickly moved
to use the new revenues to build family properties
and palaces. It was not until after World War II,
however, that the Saudi kingdom and the royal
family began to fully enjoy the profits of the oil
industry. This was when Saudi Arabia became
the first Arab country to form close ties with the
United States, as signaled by Abd al-Azizs meet-
ing with President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945 on
the deck of the USS Quincy. The newly formed
Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) then

Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi 3

King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud meets with President Roos-
evelt aboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal Zone,
February 1 4, 1 945. (Courtesy of Dr Michael Crocker/King
Abdul Aziz Foundation)

took charge, with Saudi participation, of build-
ing much of the country's infrastructure: roads,
airports, communications, electrical power, and
water system. When Abd al-Aziz died, he left a
country that was about to embark on a rapid and
far-reaching modernization program. Since that
time, Saudi Arabia has been ruled by his sons, in
alliance with the Wahhabi ulama. He is still held
in high esteem by his country.

See also authority; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Leslie J. McLoughlin, Ibn Saud:
Founder of a Kingdom (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1993); Medawi Rashid, A History of Saudi Arabia (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)

Abd al-Nasir, Jamal See Nasir Jamal Abd al-.

Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi (1808-1883) Sufi
shaykh, leader of Algerian resistance to French
colonization, and hero of Algerian independence
Abd al-Qadir, the son of a Sufi shaykh of the QADINI
Sufi Order, was chosen by his father Muhyi al-Din
to lead the resistance to France’s slow-molion
colonization of Algeria, which had begun in 1830.

From his base in the region of Oran, in the north-
west of Algeria, Abd al-Qadir led a fierce and pro-
tracted resistance. For about a decade, until 1842,
he controlled much of the Algerian hinterland and
had de facto recognition as ruler from both the
Algerian populace and the French army, which
negotiated with him. He implemented a number
of reforms during this time, inspired in part by
his admiration of Muhammad Ali (r. 1803-48),
the founder of modern Egypt, whose reforms he
had witnessed at first hand during a visit to that
country. But French determination to conquer
the Algerian hinterland led to a brutal policy of
depopulation, in which the native Algerians were
forced off their land and into camps, with massive
destruction of their crops, livestock, and villages.
Eventually, in 1847, Abd al-Qadir surrendered to
the French in order to stop the catastrophic war.
After being exiled to France, he migrated to Istan-
bul and then to Damascus, where he would spend
the rest of his life. In Damascus, he became a large
landholder and influential personage, dispensing
patronage but also teaching Quran and SUNNA at
the main Umayyad mosque.

Abd al-Qadir wrote works in which he pro-
moted rationalist explanations of the Quran and
Islam, and in this he was in the forefront of Arab
and Muslim reformers who sought to understand
their religion in light of the changed situation
imposed on them by modernity and the supremacy
of “science." Toward the end of his life, he began
to propound a literalist reading of the scriptures,
which, while not contradicting his earlier empha-
sis on reason, marked a new direction for him. As
one of his biographers points out, however, this
combination of “rational and “literal" approaches
to Islam and the Quran is typical of Salafi, or neo-
traditionalist, Islam. Abd al-Qadir is remembered
now, and was honored by Europeans during his
life, for his part in stopping a massacre (based on
local grievances) of Christians in Damascus in
1860, protecting many himself.

He is remembered by Algerians as the first
to mount organized resistance to the colonial

4 Abd al-Qadir al-J ilani

French, who would stay in that country until
they were forced out by a widespread revolution
in 1962. His position as patriot and early nation-
alist, but also as an Islamic leader, make him a
hero around whom most Algerians can safely
unite, and it is largely in Algeria that his memory
remains important today.

See also Christianity and Islam; colonialism;
Ottoman dynasty; Salafism.

John Iskander

Further reading: David Commins, Islamic Reform: Poli-
tics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1990); Raphael Danziger, Abd
al-Qadir and the Algerians: Resistance to the French and
Internal Consolidation (New York: Homes & Meier,
1977).

Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (1077-1166) Sufi
saint and founder of the Qadiri Sufi Order
Abd al-Qadir was from the Caspian region of Per-
sia and went as a teenager to Baghdad to study
Hanbali law and THEOLOGY; he was also attracted
to the teachings of Sufi masters there. After
retreating to the Iraqi desert for several years
as an ascetic, he returned to Baghdad, where he
became a scholar and a popular preacher who
attracted a wide circle of followers, including
Jews and Christians whom he had converted to
Islam. The center of his activities was a madrasa,
where he taught religious studies and was con-
sulted as a mufti. In his sermons, he admonished
his listeners to care for the poor and needy, and
he sought to harmonize Islam's legal require-
ments with its spiritual message. When he died
in 1166, he was buried in his Baghdad madrasa,
which became a popular mosque-shrine that
drew pilgrims from the Middle East and India.
His followers circulated many stories about his
miraculous powers so that within a century after
his death he was regarded as one of the leading
Sufi saints in the Muslim world. He is considered
to be the founder of the Qadiri Sufi Order, which

now has branches in the Middle East, Africa,
South Asia, and Indonesia.

See also Hanbali Legal School.

Further reading: Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, "The Qadiri-
yyah Order." In Islamic Spirituality ; 2 vols., edited by
Seyyed Hosscin Nasr, 2: 6-25 (New York: Crossroad,
1991); J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders of Islam
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Abd al-Rahman, Umar (1938- ) a blind
radical Islamic leader who was implicated in the
assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat
(d. 1981) and the 1993 New York World Trade
Center bombing

Umar Abd al-Rahman was born in al-Gamalaya,
Egypt, in 1938, and lost his sight very early in life.
After learning Braille as a young child, he excelled
at his studies. By age 11, Abd al-Rahman had
memorized the Quran. Having been trained in a
scries of traditional Islamic learning academies,
including al-AzHAR University, he received his
doctorate in 1972. He is best known for his work
as a preacher and as an Islamist organizer and
activist. In this capacity, throughout the 1970s
and 1980s, Abd al-Rahman ran afoul of Egyptian
authorities, most notoriously for allegedly issuing
the fatwa (religious edict) leading to Egyptian
president Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981.

Abd al-Rahman has been linked to two Egyp-
tian Islamist organizations, jihad and the Jamaa
Islamiyya. As a result of his involvement with
these organizations and his criticism of the Egyp-
tian state, Abd al-Rahman was imprisoned a num-
ber of times, including after Jamal Abd al-Nasir's
death in 1970 and after Sadat's assassination.
Through his involvement with Islamist networks,
he became active in anti-Soviet resistance in
Afghanistan in the early 1980s, raising money
and recruiting through his preaching and organi-
zational activities. Abd al-Rahman is said to have
established links with the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), who offered funding and military

Abduh, Muhammad 5

and logistical support to those fighting the Soviets
in Afghanistan.

Making his way to the United States after the
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988, Abd
al-Rahman continued preaching jihad against
non-Muslim powers. Following the Gulf War of
1991, he, like some other veterans of anti-Soviet
resistance in Afghanistan, turned his attention to
the United States. In 1996, he was found guilty of
orchestrating the 1993 attacks on the World Trade
Center from his mosque in New Jersey. He is serv-
ing life in prison for this crime.

See also jihad movements.

Caleb Elfenbein

Further reading: Gillcs Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Politi-
cal Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2002); Omar Abd al-Rahman, “Umar Abdul Rahman:
A Self-Portrait.” Afkar Inquiry (3 November 1986):
56-57.

Abd al-Raziq, Ali (1888-1966) liberal
Egyptian jurist and political reformer
A reform-minded judge in Egypt's sharia courts,
Ali Abd al-Raziq was the author of a controversial
book that advocated the separation of Islam from
politics. He came from a prominent landholding
family in the district of Minya in Upper Egypt that
favored the creation of a constitutional monarchy
and other liberal secular reforms. After studying
at al-AzHAR and Oxford University, he began his
career as a judge in the Egyptian court system. In
his book Islam and the Principles of Government ,
published in 1925, he argued that Muhammad's
mission was a moral and spiritual one only, and
that neither the Quran nor the hadith had ever
authorized the establishment of a caliphate, or
Islamic state. Abd al-Raziq developed his thesis
after the new republican government in Turkey
had formally abolished the caliphate in 1924, a
time when there were strong secular and national-
ist currents in the Middle East. Nevertheless, his
book outraged religious authorities and tradition-

ally minded Muslims who wanted to hold on to
the ideal of united Muslim polity, even though
the caliphate had long before ceased to be an
effective political institution in Muslim coun-
tries. They were even more offended that he was
contesting the role of religious law in public life
and traditional doctrines about Muhammad's role
as a prophet-ruler. They accused Abd al-Raziq
of undermining Islam with European ideas, for
which he paid a high price: A council of al-Azhar
religious scholars condemned his book, stripped
him of his degree, and dismissed him from judi-
cial office. He continued to write but stayed out ol
public affairs for the rest of his life.

See also Abduh, Muhammad; government,
Islamic; secularism.

Further reading: Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Politi-
cal Thought (Auslin: University of Texas Press, 1982);
Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age ,
1798-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1983).

Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad ibn See

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad.

Abduh, Muhammad (1849-1905) modern
Islamic modernist thinker

Muhammad Abduh was an Egyptian religious
scholar, jurist, and leader of a major social reform
movement in the Muslim world who advocated
a modernist reinterpretation of Islam. Known as
the “father of Islamic modernism,'' he was born in
1849 to a modest family in the Egyptian delta. His
early education involved traditional Quran mem-
orization, although Abduh's natural inclinations
tended toward Sufism. In 1877, he concluded
his studies in religion, logic, and philosophy at
al-Azhar University and began teaching there as
a religious scholar. Simultaneously, he became
interested in politics, publishing articles on politi-
cal and social reform and joining the Egyptian

6 ablution

nationalist movement against British occupation
of the country. This culminated in Abduhs partici-
pation in the unsuccessful 1882 Urabi Revolt and
his exile by the Egyptian khedive (ruler).

A major influence in Abduhs life was Jamal
al-Din al-Afghani, who had come to Cairo in
1871. They worked closely together there and
later in Paris, where in 1884 they organized a
secret society and published al-Urwa al-Wuthqa
(the strongest link), a newspaper promoting resis-
tance to European expansionism through Mus-
lims’ solidarity with one another and through
the revival and reform of Islam. Both Abduh and
al-Afghani saw stagnation and weakness in Islami-
cate societies as rooted in the imitation ( taqlid )
of old traditions and called for the use of rational
interpretation (ijtihad) to incorporate modern
ideas into Islam. Abduh in particular saw many
parallels between concepts in Islam and ideas
associated with the European Enlightenment and
drew on these for inspiration. He rejected, how-
ever, a wholesale appropriation of western secular
values, choosing instead the middle path of an
enlightened Islam that valued the human intellect
and modern sciences but revered the divine as the
source of human morality. He presented his ideas
on theology in a series of lectures given in Beirut
that were later published as Risalcit al-tawhid (The
Theology of Unity , 1942-1943).

In 1888, Abduh returned to Cairo, focus-
ing his energies on educational and institutional
reform. After becoming the head (mufti) of the
nation's sharia court system in 1899, he worked
to liberalize interpretations of religious law. In this
field, he was especially concerned with the status
of women and advocated changes in family law
and equal opportunities in education, but he was
often countered by strong conservative forces.

Muhammad Abduhs ideas were carried on
by his associates long after his death. Muhammad
Rashid Rida, a Syrian, published the reformist
journal Al-Manar (the beacon), which they had
started together, until his death in 1933. Qasim
Amin (d. 1908) developed further the arguments

for womens emancipation as integral to national
development and a healthy Muslim society, and he
became an inspiration to feminists in the region.
Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949) would take the spirit of
Abduhs activist Islamic ideology and apply it in
the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood. Abduh
died in 1905 near Alexandria, Egypt.

See also education; Egypt; renewal and reform
movements; Salafism; secularism.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Politi-
cal Thought (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982);
Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age t
1798-1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970);
Malcolm H. Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal
Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1966).

ablution

Ablution involves the ritual cleansing of the
body with pure water in preparation for perfor-
mance of other acts of worship. Although there
are minor differences of opinion among Islamic
legal schools, Islamic law generally stipulates two
kinds of ablution. One, called ghusl, requires an
expression of intention, followed by a cleansing
of the entire body. It must be performed after
sexual activity, menstruation, and childbirth; it
is also performed on the body of a dead person
to prepare it for funerary prayer and burial. The
second kind of ablution, wudu, involves a partial
cleansing starting with an expression of intention,
followed by washing of the face, hands up to the
elbows, head, and feet. It may also involve wash-
ing the ears and nostrils and rinsing the mouth.
This method is believed to purify the body after
urination and defecation, touching the genitals,
sleep, and other activities. Ablution may be per-
formed at home or at the MOSQUE, which has
special facilities for this purpose. The numerous
communal bathhouses that characterized medi-

abortion 7

eval Islamicate cities also helped to meet this
need. In the absence of water, Islamic law allows
for the performance of ‘’dry ablution" with sand
or a similar substance. Only the hands and face
are cleansed if this is the case. Failure to perform
the proper ablution prohibits a person from per-
forming prayer, entering a mosque, touching the
Quran, or visiting the Kaaba in Mecca.

See also funerary rituals.

Further reading: Laleh Bakhtiyar, Encyclopedia of
Islamic Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chi-
cago: ABC International Group, 1996), 20-61; Marion
Holmes Katz, Body oj Text: The Emergence oj the Sunni
Law of Ritual Purity (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 2002); Arthur Jeffrey, Reader on Islam (The
Hague: Mouton & Company, 1962), 464-470.

abortion

Abortion is a human intervention to end a preg-
nancy prior to birth. Although people living
in many different societies throughout history
have practiced it, abortion has caused consider-
able reflection and debate about its ethical, legal,
religious, social, economic, as well as medical
implications. Decisions about abortion involve
interrelationships between the woman and her
fetus, the woman and her mate or husband, and
the wider society — including religious, legal, and
medical authorities. At the center of the debate
are life and DEATH questions that no individual or
society takes lightly.

Muslim religious and legal experts have been
involved in discussions about abortion since the
11th century, and they have expressed different
points of view on the subject. They often turn
to teachings found in the Quran and hadith that
emphasize the sacrcdness of human life, such as
those that deal with mans creation with a soul
( ruh ) from God (Q 15:29, 32:9), the development
of the fetus (Q 23:12-14), and condemnations of
murder and the killing of ones own offspring (Q
17:33, 6:151, 81:8-9). Most schools of Islamic law

make a distinction between the first 120 days,
when abortion is allowed for a valid reason (for
example, to save the life of the mother or a nurs-
ing child), and the remainder of the pregnancy,
when it is believed that the fetus has received
its soul and gains legal status as a person. Abor-
tion thereafter is generally prohibited, unless the
mothers health is threatened, since her welfare
has precedence over that of the fetus. This is espe-
cially true for those who follow the recommenda-
tions of the Hanafi Legal School. On the other
hand, most jurists of the Maliki Legal School
believe that ensoulment occurs at the moment of
conception, and they tend to forbid abortion at
any point, which puts this school's position closer
to that of the Roman Catholic Church. The other
schools hold intermediate positions. The penalty
prescribed for an illegal abortion varies according
to the particular circumstances involved. Accord-
ing to the SHARIA, it should be limited to a fine
that is paid to the father or heirs of the fetus.
According to Islamic theology, there may also be
punishment in the afterlife.

There are no accurate statistics concerning
actual abortion rates among Muslims. Most Mus-
lim countries, which often have high birth rates,
fall among the group of developing nations, where
an estimated 78 percent of the world's abortions
arc performed. The Muslim countries with the
most liberal abortion laws for women are Iran,
Tunisia, and Turkey. In accordance with the sharia,
it is allowed in special circumstances in most other
Muslim countries, especially when the health of
the mother or a nursing child is involved.

See also Adam and Eve; birth control and
family planning; children; soul and spirit.

Further reading: Jonathan E. Brockopp, ed., Islamic
Ethics of Life: Abortion , War, ; and Euthanasia (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 2003); especially
the chapters by Marion Holmes Katz, Donna Lee
Bowen, and Vardit Rispler-Chaim; Basim F. Musallam,
Sex and Society in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press. 1983).

' Css ^ 8 Abou El Fadl, Khaled

Abou El Fadl, Khaled (1963- ) leading
scholar of Islamic law, religious reformer, and human
rights advocate living in the United States
Khaled Abou El Fadl was born in Kuwait in 1963
and was raised in both Kuwait and Egypt. In his
youth, he was attracted to the strict, literalist ten-
dency in contemporary Islam, but as he matured
he came to understand his religion in a less literal
way. He credits his parents for helping him to do
this. He went to the United States to attend college
in 1982 and obtained a bachelors degree at Vale
University in 1986, then a law degree from the
University of Pennsylvania (1989), and a doctor-
ate in Islamic studies from Princeton University
(1999). He has taught on the faculty of law at the
University of California, Los Angeles, since 1998
and lectures frequently to audiences in the United
States and abroad.

Abou El Fadl is an outspoken critic of terror-
ism and the puritanical Wahhabi understanding
of Islam that is promoted by an influential party
of Muslim religious authorities in Saudi Arabia
and other countries, including the United States
and Europe. His views became known to a wider
public in the United States after the September
1 1 , 2001 , attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon through newspaper editorials, pub-
lications, and speeches. He condemns religious
fanaticism and supports religious and cultural
pluralism, democratic values, and womens rights.
His Muslim opponents accuse him of being a
tool of the West, serving the interests of Islam's
enemies. What makes Abou El Fadls ideas so
powerful, however, is that he supports many of
his opinions with an encyclopedic knowledge of
the Quran and the sharia, enhanced further by his
training in the secular Western legal tradition. His
California home contains thousands of volumes
and manuscripts, including many classics on
Islamic subjects, which inspired the essays in his
Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in
Islam. For him, the search for the truth, or God's
law, is an ongoing endeavor, one that involves rea-
soned argument, the weighing of different points

of view, and placement of quranic command-
ments in their appropriate historical context.
Abou El Fadl boldly maintains that this method
has been a norm in classical Islamic thought but
has been violated by religious fanatics, who base
their views on blind imitation and superficial,
erroneous interpretations of God's will. In doing
this, Abou El Fadl is claiming a place for himself
squarely within the reformist tradition in modern
Islam. “A careful and reflective synthesis," he
writes, “must be worked out between modernity
and tradition " (And God Knows the Soldiers , p.
1 15). Through his writings and his public service
on behalf of human rights, he is impacting both
American civil society and Muslim immigrant
communities. What remains to be seen is whether
he and other progressively minded Muslims will
be able to have a profound affect abroad in Mus-
lim-majority countries.

See also renewal and reform movements;
Salafism; secularism; United States; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Khaled M. Abou El Fadl, And God
Knows the Soldiers: The Authoritative and Authoritarian
in Islamic Discourses (Lanham, Md.: University Press of
America, 2001); Khaled M. Abou El Fadl, Conference
of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam (Lanham,
Md.: University Press of America, 2001); Omid Safi, ed.,
Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism
(Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003).

Abraham (Arabic: Ibrahim) one of the leading
Muslim prophets, believed to be the ancestral founder
of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
One of the most important figures in Islamic
sacred history is Abraham, who is considered a
patriarchal figure, a close “friend ' of God, and,
above all, a prophet and founder of the Kaaba in
Mecca. Western scholars disagree about when
the historic Abraham may have lived — some
say as early as 2000 b.c.e., others say up to a
thousand years later (ca. 1000 b.c.e.). Muslim
understandings of Abraham drew significantly

Abu Bakr 9

from stories found in the book of Genesis in the
Bible and related accounts that were circulating
among Jews and Christians in the Middle East
during the seventh century c.E. These accounts
were then adapted to the Arab Muslim environ-
ment, as first shown in the Quran. The fact that
Muslims as well as Jews and Christians look to
Abraham as an ancestral figure for their respec-
tive religions has led some people to call all three
religions Abrahamic and their followers “children
of Abraham.”

Abraham is mentioned in the Quran more
than any other prophet except for Moses. As in the
Bible, he is portrayed as an opponent of idolatry
(Q 6:74-84), a person who converses with God
and the angels (Q 11:69-76), the father of Ish-
mael (Arabic: Ismail, Q 2:133) and Isaac (Arabic:
Ishaq, Q 37:112), a founder of sacred places (Q
2:125-127), and a pious man who was prepared
to sacrifice his son at Gods command (Q 37:99-
111). Islamic traditions emphasize his role as the
builder of the ancient Kaaba and his connection
with many of the hajj rituals. His wife, Hagar, and
their son Ishmacl are associated with the well of
Zamzam in the Sacred Mosque and the ritual “run-
ning" between the hills of Safa and Marwa. One
of the most important memorials in the Sacred
Mosque's courtyard is the Station of Abraham,
where it is believed he stood while building the
Kaaba. Muslims commemorate the attempted sac-
rifice of his son every year during the Id al-Adha
(F east of the Sacrifice), which closes the hajj sea-
son. The Quran docs not say which of Abrahams
two sons he intended to sacrifice, but the consen-
sus reached among Muslims is that it was lshmael.
In Judaism, it is believed to have been his other
son, Isaac. Abraham is thought to have been bur-
ied in the West Bank town of Hebron, which is
called al-Khalil in Arabic in memory of Abraham’s
reputation as “the friend" of God (sec Q 4:125).
His tomb there is a place of worship for both Jews
and Muslims, but it has become a flashpoint for
confrontations between members of these com-
munities in modern times.

See also Judaism and Islam; prophets and
prophecy.

Further reading: Reuven Firestone, Journeys in Holy
Lands: The Evolution of the Abrahatn-Ishtnael Legends
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990);
Gordon Darnell Newby, The Making of the Last Prophet:
A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989).

Abu Bakr (573-634) first of four Sunni “rightly
guided” caliphs to rule the early Muslim community
after Muhammad's death in 632
Abu Bakr, the close companion and father-in-law
of Muhammad, was elected the first caliph of the
Muslim community when Muhammad died in
632. Sunni Muslims regard him as one of the
four “rightly guided" caliphs, along with Umar
ibn al-Khattab (r. 634-644), Uthman ibn Affan
(r. 644-655), and Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656-661).
A native of Mecca, Abu Bakr was a member of
a branch of the Quraysh tribe and made a living
as a merchant. He is remembered as the first of
Muhammad's associates (excluding family mem-
bers) to convert to Islam, and he helped protect
Muhammad when he departed on the Hijra to
Medina in 622. His nickname was al-Siddiq (the
truthful) because he was the first to confirm
the reality of Muhammad's Night Journey and
Ascent. Abu Bakr was Muhammad's main adviser,
and he joined him in all his subsequent battles.
His daughter Aisha married Muhammad and
became his most important wife. When Muham-
mad died, Abu Bakr was the candidate favored by
the powerful Quraysh and other Emigrants from
Mecca to become the Prophet's successor (caliph),
against Ali, who was favored by the Ansar of
Medina. Ali and his supporters, however, pledged
allegiance to Abu Bakr without conflict. In what
were called the “wars of apostasy," Abu Bakr was
soon forced to suppress rebellions by tribes in
outlying regions of the Arabian Peninsula that had
refused to pay alms ( zakat ), or had turned away

^ 10 Abu Hanifa

from Islam to follow rival prophets. After success-
fully prosecuting these wars, he authorized the
sending of Muslim and Arab tribal armies into
Syria and Iraq, thus inaugurating the first Muslim
conquests outside the Arabian Peninsula. The first
collection of the Quran in written form was also
initiated at his order.

See also authority; caliphate; fitna.

Further reading: Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the
Age oj the Caliphates (London: Longman, 1985); Wil-
ferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of
the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997).

Abu Hanifa See Hanafi Legal School.

Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid (1943- )

influential Egyptian intellectual who was forced
to leave his native Egypt because of his secularist
approach to interpreting the Quran and other
Islamic texts

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was born in a small village
near Tanta, a city in Egypt's Nile Delta. His father
was a grocer, and his mother was the daughter of
a professional Quran reciter. He graduated from
technical school in I960 and worked as an electri-
cian in a government ministry. In 1968, he moved
to Cairo and enrolled at Cairo University, where
he obtained a B.A. degree in Arabic language and
literature four years later. He earned a masters
degree and a doctorate (1980) in Islamic studies
from the same institution. Abu Zayd's master's
thesis was on the Mutazili interpretation of the
Quran, and his doctoral dissertation was about the
famous Sufi Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240)
and his mystical interpretations of the Quran. His
first academic appointment was to the Depart-
ment of Arabic Studies at Cairo University. His
published works deal with the modern interpreta-
tions of the Quran, Islamic law, Ibn al-Arabi, and
womens rights. He has studied and taught in the

United States, Japan, and the Netherlands, where
he has been a professor of Arabic and Islamic
studies at Leiden University since 1995.

The main reason Abu Zayd left Egypt in 1995
was that his secular theories about how to inter-
pret sacred Islamic texts upset influential Muslim
conservatives who then caused such a public
uproar in the media that he felt his life was in dan-
ger. His fears were justified, because Farag Foda, a
leading critic of political Islam in Egypt, had been
assassinated in 1992 because of his views, and
Egyptian Nobel Prize laureate Naguib Mahfouz
had barely escaped a fatal stabbing in 1994. Abu
Zayd's trouble began in 1992, when he submitted
his publications to a tenure review committee at
Cairo University. Despite very positive evalua-
tions, the committee recommended that he not be
granted tenure, which sparked a national debate
over academic freedom and defending Islam and
Egypt from the threat of secular values. An influ-
ential member of the tenure committee, who also
preached at a major mosque in Old Cairo, accused
Abu Zayd of “intellectual terrorism” and said that
his works were a “Marxist-secularist attempt to
destroy Egypt's society" (Najjar, 179). Aside from
minor technical flaws, what really upset Abu
Zayd's critics was his liberal secularist approach
to reading Islamic literature. He argued that in the
modern period Muslim extremists and authoritar-
ians promoted misguided understandings about
Islam as eternal truths that cannot be disputed. He
concluded that such notions were self-serving and
did not stand up to the light of rational analysis.
A small group of closed-minded zealots, therefore,
were preventing foundational Islamic texts such
as the Quran and hadith from being debated and
understood in terms of context, historical change,
and universal values. In an unprecedented action,
Abu Zayd's opponents took his case to court and
were able to convince the Cairo Appeals Court,
backed by the Egyptian Supreme Court, to rule
that he was an apostate (a Muslim who had aban-
doned his religion), and because of this he could
no longer remain married to his wife, Ibtihal.

adab

Faced with death threats, forced separation from
his wife, and the lack of support from Egyptian
civil authorities, he and his wife left the country
to live in exile.

See also Mutazili School; secularism.

Further reading: Fauzi M. Najjar. "Islamic Fundamen-
talism and the Intellectuals: The Case of Nasr Hamid
Ahu Zayd.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 27
(2000): 177-200; Nasr Abu Zaid and Esther R. Nelson,
Voice of an Exile: Reflections on Islam (Westport, Conn.:
Pracger, 2004).

adab

Adah is an Arabic word for refined behavior and
good manners that are to be practiced daily. It is
also used for areas of knowledge that are today
called the humanities, especially literature written
in eloquent prose. Both as a code of moral instruc-
tions and as a body of knowledge expressed
through literature, adab has been significantly
shaped by the Quran and the sunna of Muham-
mad, but it has also absorbed local codes of behav-
ior and non-lslamic traditions of learning based in
urban social settings. The traditional masters of
adab were Muslim religious scholars, mystics, and
educated elites who served the rulers of Islamicate
lands from Spain and North Africa to Southeast
Asia, especially between the eighth century and

the 20th.

Although mastery of the skills necessary for
understanding and producing eloquently written
literature was available only to a select minority,
training in manners and morals was a life-long
process that all members of society were expected
to engage in, beginning with childhood education
and continuing with individual self-discipline
in adulthood. In premodern Islamicate societ-
ies, there were written codes of adab for specific
groups, such as the ULAMA, rulers, nobles, bureau-
crats and secretaries, judges, Sufis, tradesmen and
artisans, and even musicians. From the general
religious perspective of Islam, there are also rules

of good conduct that are applicable to all believ-
ers. The Quran and the sunna of Muhammad con-
tain these rules, which involve ordinary activities
such as eating, dress, grooming, speaking, visita-
tion, and hospitality. Muslim theologians and phi-
losophers saw adab as an etiquette or discipline
that could help purify the individual's God-given,
rational soul by strengthening inner virtues and
controlling or even eliminating wrongful behav-
ior such as lying and cheating. Moreover, they
thought adab could curb worldly passions, for
example, sexual desire, greed, anger, jealousy,
gluttony, and stinginess. One of the leading medi-
eval theologians, al-Ghazali (d. 1111), linked adab
to the Five Pillars of Islam (which involve an
etiquette for human behavior toward God), Sufi
practices, and the attainment of eternal bliss in
paradise.

Adab is also used as a name for a large and
diverse body of literary works that both conveys
information and demonstrates the creative elo-
quence of the written word in order to transmit
cultural values and entertain readers. It includes
books of history, geography, travel, BIOGRAPHY,
poetry, and interesting information about people
and natural phenomena. In the early centuries of
Islam, much of this literature was written in Ara-
bic and drew upon the styles of expression found
in the Quran and hadith. But ancient Greek and
Persian learning also inspired and was at home
wherever Islamicate civilization flourished. One
of the most important contributors to this body of
writings was al-Jahiz (d. 869), who may have com-
posed as many as 200 books and essays on a wide
range of topics, including animal lore, singing
girls, misers, politics, philosophy, and religion.

See also Arabic language and literature;
education; Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-; morality and
ethics; Sufism.

Further reading: Roger Allen. The Arabic Literary Heri-
tage: The Development of Its Genres and Criticism (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Barbara
Daily Metcalf, ed.. Moral Conduct and Authority: The

' Css ^ 1 2 Adam and Eve

Place oj Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1984).

Adam and Eve ancestral parents of all human
beings according to Islamic belief
Muslim understandings of Adam and Eve, the
first human beings, are based on the Quran, the
HADITH, and other religious texts. Muslims also
regard Adam as the first of a series of prophets
that ends with Muhammad. Biblical and later Jew-
ish and Christian stories about Adam and Eve
were already familiar to Arab peoples at the time
Islam began in the seventh century, and these
stories continued to develop in their new Arabic-
Islamic setting thereafter.

According to the Quran, God created Adam
from clay (Q 7:12) and gave him life by filling
him with his spirit (ruh t Q 15:29). God appointed
him to be his deputy (caliph) on Earth, to which
the angels objected because of their fear that he
would cause trouble and bloodshed (Q 2:30). God
had Adam prove his superiority to them by teach-
ing him the names of everything (Q 2:30-32).
The angels finally bowed down to Adam, except
Satan, whom God expelled from heaven for his
disobedience (Q 2:34, 7:11-18). The Quran docs
not mention Eve (Hawwa) by name, but it docs
talk about Adams ‘’wife" (Q 20:117). She was
created from Adam (Muslim commentators say
from his rib), and they lived blissfully together in
PARADISE, where they were allowed to eat whatever
they wished except from the tree of immortality
(Q 7:189, 2:35, 20:120). Muslim commentators
speculate that this may have been a fig tree, a grape
vine, or even wheat. Both Adam and Eve violated
God's taboo after being misled by Satan (not a ser-
pent), thus committing the first sin. For punish-
ment, they were expelled from paradise and sent
down to Earth, where they and their descendants
were to live, die, and be resurrected (Q 7:20-25,
20:121-123, 2:36). Despite this punishment, Mus-
lims do not hold to a doctrine of original sin,
which many Christian denominations in the West

believe humans have inherited from Adam and
Eve. Rather, Islamic tradition holds that God for-
gave Adam, allowing him to repent and providing
him guidance toward salvation (Q 2:37-38).

After the Fall, according to Islamic tradition,
Adam landed on Mount Nawdh in India (or Sri
Lanka), where he initiated the first crafts; Eve
landed in Jidda, Arabia. Some say that the city of
Jidda, which means “grandmother,” was actually
named in memory of Eve. Adam and his wife were
reunited when the angel Gabriel brought Adam to
Mecca for the first time to perform the hajj. As in
the Bible, Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, and Cain
later murdered his brother out of jealousy because
God accepted Abels sacrifice and not his own
(Q 5:27-32). Legendary accounts say that Adam
and Eve gave birth to 20 sets of girl-boy twins,
from which all the worlds peoples are descended.
According to Shii tradition, Adam and Eve were
given a premonition of the martyrdom of their
descendant HUSAYN IBN Au (d. 680), the prophet
Muhammad's grandson, and they were the first to
express grief on his behalf. Sufis and others, on the
other hand, have looked to when, prior to their
existence, the children of Adam were brought forth
from his loins to testify to God as their lord (sec Q
7:171). This was intended to show that worship of
one true God was inherent in human nature.

See also Allah; angel; prophets and prophesy;

SOUL AND SUPPORT.

Further reading: M. J. Kister, “Adam: A Study of Some
Legends in Tafsir and Hadith Literature. " Israel Oriental
Studies (1993): 113-174; Gordon Darnell Newby, The
Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earli-
est Biography of Muhammad (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1989).

ad at See CUSTOMARY LAW.

adhati (Arabic; also azew)

Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, is recited in
Arabic before each of the five daily prayers from

adultery 13

a MOSQUE. According to traditional accounts, it
was first performed by Bilal, one of Muhammad's
companions, after the Hijra to Medina in 622 c.E.
The man who performs the call to prayer is called
a muadhdhin (muezzin), and he should stand fac-
ing the qibla (toward Mecca) when he does so.
Muslims are expected to perform their prayers
when they hear the adhan. Although the call to
prayer may sound melodic, many Muslims object
to it being called musical because of its religious
meaning.

For Sunni Muslims, the following phrases are
chanted (with minor variations in the number of
repetitions):

1. Allahu akbar (repeated four times) “God
is great”;

2. Ashhadu an la ilaha ilia Allah (repeated
twice) “1 witness that there is no god but
God”;

3. Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah
(repeated twice) “1 witness that Muham-
mad is the prophet of God";

4. Hayya ala s-salah (repeated twice) “Come
to prayer”;

3. Hayya ala l-falah (repeated twice) “Come
to safety and prosperity";

6. Allahu akbar (repeated twice) “God is
great”;

7. La ilaha ilia Allah “There is no god but
God.”

The adhan for the morning prayer adds the follow-
ing after part 5: as-salatu khayrun min an-nawm
(repeated twice) “Prayer is better than sleep."

For Twelve-Imam Shiism, the call to prayer can
differ slightly with the addition of ashhadu anna
Aliyan vvaliyu Allah (“I witness that Ali is the
friend of God") after part 3, and hayya ala khayr
al-amal (“Come to the best of actions," repeated
twice) after part 5.

Traditionally, the muezzin chanted the adhan
from the mosque minaret, but today he can do
it from the mosque floor using loudspeakers. It
is not unusual in Muslim cities to hear the adhan

coming noisily from several mosques in the same
neighborhood, each chanted in a different style. In
cities where Muslims are a minority, it may have
to be performed quietly or inside the mosque. The
call to prayer is also performed on radio and tele-
vision in Muslim countries, and it can sometimes
be heard on radio stations in the United States.
The adhan may also be chanted softly into the ear
of a newborn child, welcoming her or him into
the wider Muslim community.

See also music; shahada; Sunnism.

Further reading: Hammudah Abd al-Ati, Islam in Focus
(Beltsville, Md.: Amana Publications, 1998); Scott L.
Marcus, Music in Egypt: Experiencing Music , Express-
ing Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007);
Likayat A. Takim, “From Bicla to Sunna: The Wilaya of
Ali in the Shii Adhan." Journal of the American Oriental
Society 120 (2000): 166-177.

adultery

Sexual intercourse with someone other than one's
marriage partner is called zinc* (adultery) in
Arabic. In the sharia zina encompasses not only
adultery but any sexual act among two people
who arc not married to each other. Pre-lslamic
Arabian society may have considered zina as one
of several acceptable forms of marriage, but Islam
brought an end to these multiple forms. For men,
the only exception to zina concerns sexual inter-
course with the female slaves under their owner-
ship, which is allowable (although not common
practice today).

Adultery is a grave offense in Islam, as it
undermines the basic foundation of Muslim soci-
etal organization — the legal contract of marriage
by which two partners are bound to each other
exclusively by clearly delimited rights and obliga-
tions. Among these rights and duties is exclusive
sexual access to ones spouse, so as to prevent pro-
miscuity and social disorder. The Quran includes
numerous references on the subject, most notably
Q 24:2, which pronounces the fixed hadd punish-

14 Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-

ment of 100 lashes for adulterers. Some HADITH
accounts go on to specify that this punishment is
reserved for unmarried adulterers, while married
adulterers are to be stoned to death. The Quran
(Q 4:15) insists that four eye witnesses must
confirm the act of adultery in order to execute
punishment, since unsubstantiated accusations
of adultery are an almost equally grave matter.
The Quran (Q 24:4) states that anyone who insti-
gates a charge of adultery without the required
evidence of four witnesses is punishable by 80
lashes. Because of these stringent requirements of
proof, punishment for adultery is rarely executed,
although Muslim authorities have tried to enforce
it in some modern Muslim countries.

See also crime and punishment; divorce; slav-
ery; WOMEN.

Aysha A. Hidayatullah

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in
Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); Abdelwahab Bouh-
diba, Sexuality in Islam. Translated by Alan Sheridan
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985); Noel J.
Couslon, “Regulation of Sexual Behavior under Tradi-
tional Islamic Law.” In Society and the Sexes in Medieval
Islam, edited by Afaf Lufti al-Sayyid-Marsot (Malibu,
Calif.: Undena, 1979).

Afghani, Jamal al-Din al- (1838-1897)
leading advocate for Islamic revivalism and Muslim
solidarity against European imperialism in the
1 9th century

Some uncertainty surrounds the origins of Muslim
writer, philosopher, and political activist Jamal
al-Din al-Afghani, whose name indicates he was
from Afghanistan but whose real homeland most
scholars identify as Persia, or modern-day Iran.
Born into a Shii family of sayyids (descendants of
Muhammad), al-Afghani spent his life traveling and
teaching in India, the Middle East, and Europe.
His main objective was to inspire and organize

a pan-Islamic movement to strengthen Muslims'
resistance to the expansion of European, specifi-
cally British, power around the world. Among his
many prominent disciples were Muhammad Abduh
( d. 1905), with whom he published a newspaper
( al-Urwa al-Wuthqa, strongest link) in 1884, and
Saad Zaghloul (d. 1927), who later led Egypt's
independence movement. His major work was a
treatise on the role of reason in understanding
divine revelation titled al-Radd ala al-Dahiriyyin
(Reply to the materialists). Many consider him the
father of Muslim nationalism.

Al-Afghani's early education in Iran was in
THEOLOGY and Islamic philosophy, particularly that
of Abu Ali al-Hussein Ibn Sina (Latin: Avicenna, d.
1037)). As a youth, he studied modern sciences
and MATHEMATICS in India, where he witnessed
firsthand the detrimental political and social
effects of British imperialism. This contributed to
his view that Muslims needed to band together
to defend themselves. Muslim solidarity and a
revitalized Islam, one that integrated the best of
technology and science with traditional Islamic
values, were essential if Muslims were to regain
control of their lands. He enthusiastically pro-
moted a role for rational interpretation (ijtihad) in
understanding Islam, a position he debated with
European intellectuals, such as Ernest Renan (d.
1892), and Muslim clerics alike.

Al-Afghani's career took him to many coun-
tries and into the service of many Muslim gov-
ernments, including the Ottoman sultan Abd
al-Hamid (r. 1806-1909) and Persia's Shah Nasir
al-Din (r. 1848-96). However, this did not keep
him from directing his criticisms at his patrons,
whom he saw as extensions or at least facilita-
tors of European influence in the Middle East.
He advocated constitutionalism as a way to check
autocratic power, criticized the Tanzimat reforms
in Turkey, and initiated the popular agitation that
led to the Tobacco Protests of 1891-92 against
British concessions in Persia. In 1896, Nasir
al-Din was assassinated by one of al-Afghani's
followers, leaving the latter to live out his days

Afghanistan 1 5

in Istanbul under the distrustful surveillance of
the sultan. Al-Afghanis influence was seminal
to the development of Muslim nationalism and
Islamic modernism and to the lives of men such as
Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Rashid Rida (d.
1935), Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938), and Muham-
mad Ali Jinnah (d. 1948), who would carry the
Islamic reform movement forward in the 20th
century.

See also Constitutional Revolution; pan-
Islamism; renewal and reform movements;
Salafism.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the
Liberal Age , 1798-1939 (London: Oxford University
Press, 1970); Nikki R Kcddie, An Islamic Response to
Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid
Jamal al-Din “al- Afghani" (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1983).

Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a mountainous landlocked coun-
try with an area of 647,500 sq. km. (comparable
in size to the state of Texas) and an estimated
population of 32.7 million in 2008. It is situated
on the frontier between the Middle East, Central
Asia, and South Asia, with Iran on its western
border and Pakistan on its eastern and southern
borders. A large majority of its people are Sunni
Muslim (80 percent), but there are also Shii Mus-
lims (19 percent) and followers of other religions
(1 percent). Religious life consists of a mixture of
folk religion, Sufism, and formal Islamic doctrine
and practice. Ethnic and tribal loyalties are often
stronger than religious and national ones. The
major ethnic groups are Pashtun (42 percent, also
called Afghans), Tajik (27 percent), Hazara (9
percent), and Uzbek (9 percent). Pushtu and Dari
(the Afghani Persian dialect) are Afghanistan's
official languages, but there are more than 30 lan-
guages and dialects spoken there, most of which

belong to the Indo-European and Turkic language
families. Its major cities are Kabul (the capital),
Qandahar, and Herat, but most of the population
still lives in the countryside.

Because of its location, the Afghanistan region
has been a crossroads for peoples, merchandise,
and empires for centuries. The Arab Muslim
armies that arrived in the seventh century were
following the routes used previously by Persian
and Greek invaders, but none of these empires,
or the nearly 20 empires and dynasties that came
later, found Afghanistan easy to conquer and
control. The Afghan peoples, though internally
divided, tend to unite in fierce opposition to out-
siders. Islamic rule was not secure there until the
late 10th century, when it became the seat of the
Ghaznavid dynasty (977-1163), which also gov-
erned eastern Iran and launched a series of raids
into northern India. Afghanistan then succumbed
to invasions by Turks and Mongols during the
13th and 14th centuries. The country's strategic
location continued to make it a focal point of
conflict between Muslim rulers in Iran and India
from the 15th to 18th centuries and a target for
the imperial ambitions of Russia and Great Brit-
ain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite
its turbulent history, medieval Afghanistan saw
moments of significant religious and cultural
achievement, reflected in its role in the exten-
sion of Islamicate architectural forms to India
and sponsorship of Firdowsis Persian epic, the
Shahnama (ca. 980), and the scientific writings
of Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973-1048). In addition
to being the base from which Muslims invaded
northern India, Afghanistan was the birthplace
of several important Sufi masters, including Ibra-
him ibn Adham (d. 778) and Jalal al-Din Rumi
( 1207-73), and it witnessed the emergence of two
of the most important Sufi orders: the Chishti Sufi
Order and the Naqshbandi Sufi Order.

Afghanistan became a modern independent
country in 1919 and evolved into a constitu-
tional monarchy under the influence of the Soviet
Union. After fighting off an armed Soviet invasion

-4=5=5

1 6 Afghan mujahidin

in 1979-89, the country was torn by a lengthy
civil war. Both of these conflicts contributed to
the growth of heavily armed guerrilla militias and
forced 6 million Afghans to become refugees in
neighboring countries. The civil war ended with
the establishment of the extremist Islamic govern-
ment of the Taliban in 1996. That government
was infamous for its brutal treatment of women,
persecution of religious minorities, and destruc-
tion of the famed colossal images of the Buddha
in Bamian (2001). The Taliban were removed by
force in late 2001, when the United States led
an international invasion and occupation of the
country as a consequence of the war on terror it
launched in the aftermath of the September 11,
2001 attacks by the al-Qaida organization, which
was headquartered in Afghanistan. A constitution-
ally based transitional government with its capital
in Kabul has since been created, but the new
regime, known as the Transitional Islamic State
of Afghanistan (TISA), faces enormous challenges
to its legitimacy from powerful regional warlords,
opium drug traffickers, and Muslim guerrilla
forces.

See also Afghan mujahidin; constitutionalism;
Persian language and literature.

Further reading: Larry P. Goodson, Afghanistan's End-
less War: State Failure , Regional Politics , and the Rise oj
the Taliban (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2001); Ahmed Rasheed, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and
Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 2001).

Afghan mujahidin

The Afghan mujahidin (warriors) are bands of
Muslim guerrillas who fought against the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan in 1979-89 and then
turned against each other in a bloody civil war
that resulted in the creation of the Taliban regime
in 1996. Informal Islamist parties began appearing
in Afghanistan in the mid-1960s, at a time when
the radical ideologies of Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966)

and Abu al-Ala Mawdudi (d. 1979) were becom-
ing a strong presence in neighboring Pakistan.
Afghan Islamist parties at the time began adopting
the call for JIHAD, which was central to Qutbs and
Maududi's programs. It was only with the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, however, that
these calls were seriously heeded.

Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation com-
prised many different elements, including national-
ist parties, pro-China communists, and Islamists. It
was the latter group, however, that dominated the
fight to expel the Soviets. Based in Afghan refugee
camps in Peshcwar, Pakistan, Islamist resistance
groups, called the mujahidin, quickly began receiv-
ing money and arms from Saudi Arabia and the
United States. The dominant force among the
Afghan resistance was the Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic
Party), led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (b. 1947?),
one of the earliest and most conservative Afghani
Islamist activists. Early disunity among as many as
seven different Afghan mujahidin groups slowed
the progress of the fight against the Soviets, but
with foreign assistance, they were able to operate
effectively on the battlefield. During this time, the
Afghan mujahidin were treated favorably in the
Western media as “freedom fighters.”

The Afghan guerrillas were not alone in their
fight against the Soviet occupation. Islamists from
the entire Muslim world traveled to Afghanistan
under the banner of Islam and jihad. Among these
Islamists were Usama bin Ladin (Saudi Arabia),
Ayman Zawahiri (Egypt), Umar Abd al-Rahman
(Egypt), Abdullah Azzam (Palestine), and legions
of young men from countries around the Mus-
lim world. The resulting hybrid, transnational
network of Islamists advocated an active jihad
against foreign powers and a reconstruction of
Afghanistan according to an extremely conserva-
tive interpretation of Islam. Together, the Afghan
and Arab mujahidin forced the Soviet withdrawal
in 1989. Hekmatiyar's Hezb-e-lslami and Burhan-
uddin Rabbanis Jamiat-i-lslami (Islamic Soci-
ety, based in northern Afghanistan) emerged as
the strongest mujahidin groups after the Soviet

African Americans, Islam among 1 7

defeat, but they ended up fighting against each
other as well as other groups for control of the
country. From bases in Pakistan and central and
southern Afghanistan, the Taliban took advantage
of this chaotic situation to make their own play
for power in 1994-96. Mujahidin continues to be
a term used by various armed factions that are
contending for power and influence in the coun-
try since the United States overthrew the Taliban
regime in December 2001.

See also jihad movements; mujahid ; Qaida, al-.

Caleb Elfenbein

Further reading: M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan: The
Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response , 1979-1982
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Gillcs
Kcpel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002); Ahmed Rashid,
Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002).

Africa See Algeria; East Africa; Egypt; Libya;
Morocco; Sudan; Tunisia; West Africa.

African Americans, Islam among

The first African American Muslims were slaves
captured in West Africa in the 1700s and brought
to the American colonies. The few accounts of
them from the early decades of the United States
indicate that the Muslims formed somewhat of
an elite in the slave community, that many
were literate, and that they became known for
their resistance to the conditions in which they
found themselves. They also resisted attempts by
Christians to convert. There remains, however,
little evidence to connect Islam within the slave
community with a new Islamic movement that
developed among African Americans in the urban
north in the 20th century.

A new phase for Islam among American blacks
began in 1913, when Timothy Drew (1886-1929)

assumed the name Noble Drew Ali and founded
the Moorish Science Temple of America. This
organization can best be seen as an attempt to
adapt Muslim themes to the struggle of African
Americans for a place of dignity and equality in
American life. From his personal research, he
concluded that American blacks were descendants
of the Moors and that their true homeland was
Morocco. He suggested that in the founding of
the United States, the nationality, freedom, and
religion of African Americans had been taken from
them. Not having access to an English translation
of the Quran, he adapted a Spiritualist text, the
Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ, by Levi Dowling,
and issued it as the movement's Quran.

The Moorish Science Temple spread among
African Americans through the 1930s but declined
in the decades after World War II. The thrust it
began, however, was picked up by a second orga-
nization, the Nation of Islam, dated to 1930, and
the activity of a mysterious man known as Wallace
Fard Muhammad. He continued Noble Drew Ali s
emphasis on African Americans having an African
origin and developed an elaborate myth of the
primal origin of black people. Leadership of the
movement was soon assumed by Elijah Muham-
mad (1897-1975), who steered it through some
controversial years to great success in the 1960s,
coinciding with the heyday of the Civil Rights
movement.

As the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation
of Islam were spreading, the Ahmadiyya movement
in Islam sent representatives from India to begin
proselytizing. Their greatest success proved to be
among black Americans, who for a generation
formed the largest community of African-Ameri-
can Muslims. Also competing for the attention of
blacks attracted to Islam was a movement formed
by Shaykh Daoud, who came from Bermuda in
the 1920s.

The shape of the African-American Muslim
community began a dramatic transformation in
the 1970s. Following the change in U.S. immi-
gration regulations in 1965, a number of Indo-

1 8 African languages and literature

Pakistani Muslims moved to the United States,
many members of the Ahmadiyya movement, who
served to reassert its identity as an international
Muslim fellowship (while at the same time deal-
ing with its rejection by other Pakistani Muslims
as a heretical movement).

The death of Elijah Muhammad led to fights
over succession. While his son assumed leader-
ship over the largest segment of the membership,
a variety of smaller schismatic groups appeared.
Their claim to being the true successor to Elijah
Muhammad was strengthened when Warith Deen
Muhammad (b. 1933) began to move the Nation
of Islam toward Sunni Islam. That move had
begun with one of the nations most prominent
leaders, Malcolm X (1925-65), who had gone on
the HAJJ and discovered how different the nations
doctrines were. His advocacy of a move to ortho-
doxy was among several factors that led to his
assassination. In leading the Nation of Islam to
orthodoxy, W. D. Muhammad changed the name
of the nation several times and in the process lost
his most capable lieutenant, Louis Farrakhan (b.
1933), who moved to reconstitute the Nation of
Islam as it was in the early 1970s. The movement
led by W. D. Muhammad eventually disbanded
as it completely aligned with the larger orthodox
community.

By the end of the 20th century, approximately
30 percent of all the mosques in the United States
were serving a predominantly African-American
constituency. The number of mosques indicated
the inroads made into the black community, long
dominated by Baptist, Methodist, and Pente-
costal Christian churches. It has gained an even
greater level of acceptance from the conversion
of some outstanding American athletes, such as
Muhammad Ali (b. 1942) and Karem Abdul-Jab-
bar (b. 1947), who adopted Muslim names as
their careers soared. There are an estimated 4 to
6 million African-American Muslims in America.
Most attend mainstream Islamic mosques, though
a significant minority adheres to the Ahmadiyya
movement, the several schisms from the Nation

of Islam (the largest led by Farrakhan), and other
smaller sectarian groups.

See also slavery; Sunnism.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Steven Barboza, American Jihad: Islam
after Malcolm X (New York: Image/Doubleday, 1994);
Martha F. Lee, The Nation of Islam, an American Mil-
lenarian Movement. Studies in Religion and Society
(Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988); Richard
Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).

African languages and literature

The variety of Islamic experiences in Africa can
be seen in the diversity of languages and literature
through which Islam has expressed itself. The
most influential literary language has been Arabic.
Culturally dominant in North Africa, Arabic has
often been the language of religious instruction,
devotional practices, and pious writings in sub-
Saharan Africa as well. Arab geographers such as
al-Bakri (d. 1094) and explorers such as ibn Bat-
tuta (d. 1368) wrote the oldest existing descrip-
tions of sub-Saharan Africa in Arabic. A couple of
centuries after lbn Battuta's travels in West Africa,
the earliest sub-Saharan chronicles were written
in Arabic. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the
ulama of Timbuktu produced original scholarly
works in Arabic and copied great Islamic texts
from North Africa and the Fertile Crescent in the
same language. Religious scholars would continue
to use Arabic as the language of instruction into
the 19th century.

In the realm of oral tradition, Muslims were
more prone to compose and transmit works in the
indigenous languages. Storytellers passed down
epic tales in the vernacular for hundreds of years.
The best known of these is the West African epic,
Sundiata , which dates from the 13th century. In
East Africa, the tradition of Swahili-language
poetry developed in both oral and written forms.

afterlife 1 9

A tradition of oral poetry also arose in Somalia,
through which poets discussed themes ranging
from moral lessons to failed romance. The Somali
“praise-singing" tradition provided an avenue
through which women could participate, singing
songs of praise dedicated to female saints. Other
praise songs venerated holy men in languages
such as Oromo and Amharic. Epic stories, praise
songs, and poetry all combine Islamic and Afri-
can cultural themes and contain examples of the
different elements that create a uniquely African
Islamic style.

A larger number of works have been composed
in the indigenous languages of African Islam dur-
ing the modern era. Many languages were first
written down during the 19th century, often in
the Arabic script. The 19th-century JIHAD slates
of West Africa produced a considerable amount
of literature, much of it in the Fulfide and Hausa
tongues, and 19th-century poetry frequently
combined religious imagery with anticolonialist
themes, as seen in the writings of the great Somali
poet Mahammad Abdullah Hasan (d. 1921). Some
oral works took longer to find written expression.
For instance, Somali epic poems were first written
down only in the 1970s.

During the 20th century, African literature
expanded in variety and scope, as the short
story and the novel gained in popularity. Some
of this literature was written in the languages
of the colonizers (English and French) but nev-
ertheless expressed anticolonial messages. One
popular theme highlighted the tensions in Afri-
can societies between SECULARISM, mysticism, and
scripturalism. Allegorical tales contrasted expres-
sions of pure Islam (often as practiced by simple
characters) with the hypocrisy of stern religious
figures. Other literature expressed mystical, secu-
larist, socialist, and a variety of other perspectives
within the African Muslim community.

See also alphabet; Arabic language and lit-
erature; East Africa; West Africa.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: Albert Gerard, African Language Lit-
eratures (Washington. D.C.: Three Continents, 1981);
Kenneth W. Harrow, ‘‘Islamic Literature in Africa."
In The History of Islam in Africa, edited by Nehemia
Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (Athens: Ohio Uni-
versity Press, 2000); Kenneth W. Harrow, ed., Faces of
Islam in African Literature (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heine-
mann, 1991); John William Johnson, Thomas A. Hale,
and Stephen Belcher, Oral Epics from Africa (Blooming-
ton: Indiana University Press, 1997).

afterlife (Arabic: al-akhira)

Afterlife beliefs are concerned with the question
of what happens to a person after physical death.
This is one of the enduring subjects of Islamic
belief and religious thought, which first devel-
oped in the seventh century under the influence
of native Arabian religion, Judaism, Christianity,
and other Middle Eastern religions. On the basis
of the Quran, hadith, and the teachings of reli-
gious scholars, most Muslims believe that God
determines when each person will be born and
die and that on Judgment Day he will resurrect
everyone in the body and judge each according to
that persons beliefs and actions. He will reward
good people with eternal life in PARADISE, where
they will enjoy heavenly comforts and happiness.
Evil people will be sent to the Fire, where they
will endure horrible tortures and punishments.
Eventually, many of the people of the Fire will be
allowed to join the blessed in paradise.

During the later Middle Ages, people specu-
lated more about what happens in the time
between death and resurrection. Popular beliefs
about spirits of the dead combined with Muslim
theological ideas, which resulted in the develop-
ment of doctrines about an intermediate stage
in the afterlife known as the barzakh, where the
dead experience a preliminary judgment at the
hands of the angels Munkar and Nakir and a
preview of their rewards and punishments. The
souls of martyrs who died in battle were believed
to go directly to paradise during this time. Many

'Css'S

20 Aga Khan

Muslims also believed that the dead remained
conscious in the tomb and that their spirits could
move about in the world. This was especially
true for the saints — holy men and women who
could help people who sought their assistance.
People claimed to communicate with them in
their dreams, and many traveled to their tombs
as pilgrims to win their blessings. Such beliefs
are still widely held by Muslims today, although
proponents of conservative and reformist under-
standings of Islam argue that they have no basis in
the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad.

Sec also cemetery; funerary rites; interces-
sion; martyrdom; saint; soul and spirit.

Further reading: Juan Eduardo Campo, “Between the
Prescribed and the Performed: Muslim Ways of Death."
In Death and Religion in Contemporary Societies , edited
by Kathleen Garces-Foley (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe,
2004); Jane 1. Smith and Yvonne Haddad, The Islamic
Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1981).

Aga Khan (Agha Khan, Aqa Khan)

Since the early 19th century, Aga Khan has been
the honorific title used by the official leader (imam)
of the Nizari Ismaili branch of Shii Islam. The
title, which means “lord and master," is hereditary,
and its holders claim to be direct descendants of
the prophet Muhammad's family through Ali IBN
Abi Talib (d. 661) and Fatima (d. 633) and their
son Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 680). The liv-
ing Aga Khan is considered by his followers to be
pure and sinless, and he is their supreme religious
authority. There can be only one Aga Khan at a
time; the present one is Prince Karim al-Husayni,
Aga Khan IV (b. 1936). His predecessors were
Hasan Ali Shah (d. 1881), Ali Shah (d. 1885), and
Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah (d. 1957).

In 1846, Hasan Ali Shah broke with tradition
and transferred his residence from Iran to Bombay,
India. Here he received the recognition of British
authorities as the legal head of the Ismaili com-

munity in 1866, at a time when India was a British
colony. However, it was Muhammad Shah, Aga
Khan III, who really brought the Ismaili commu-
nity into the modern era during his 72-year reign.
Starting in the early 1900s, he reorganized Ismaili
communities in South Asia, the Middle East, and
East Africa. He encouraged them to publicly dis-
tinguish themselves from other Muslims in terms
of their beliefs and practices, instead of trying to
conceal them, which had been their custom in
order to avoid persecution. Using income from
donations given by his followers and from world-
wide business enterprises, he promoted religious
tolerance and funded public health and social wel-
fare projects for non-Muslims as well as Muslims,
including education for women. Aga Khan III also
supported the Indian independence movement
and promoted the cause of world peace, serving as
the president of the League of Nations in 1937. He
spent his last years in Geneva, Switzerland, and
was buried in Aswan, Egypt.

Prince Karim al-Husayni, Aga Khan IV, has
continued his grandfathers legacy of progressive
reform and philanthropy. Unlike his predecessors,
he received a Western education and obtained a
degree from Harvard University in Islamic history
in 1959. Since becoming the Aga Khan at the age
of 20 in 1957, he has directed a vast economic
network that, together with the Aga Khan Foun-
dation (1967), has financed health, education,
and rural development projects in South Asia,
Central Asia, and East Africa, as well as the found-
ing of the Institute for Ismaili Studies in London
(1977) and Aga Khan University in Karachi, Paki-
stan (1985). The Aga Khan Program for Islamic
Architecture (based at Harvard University and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and the
Aga Khan Award for Architecture have contrib-
uted significantly to the study and preservation
of the Islamicate architectural heritage around the
world as well to the development of new design
concepts based on Islamicate patterns.

See also architecture; ahl al-bayt; East Africa;
Ismaili Shiism; Zaydi Shiism.

agriculture 21

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, A Short History of the
Ismailis (Princeton, N.J.: Marcus Wiener Publishers,
1998); Willi Frischauer, The Aga Khans (London: The
Bodlcy Head, 1970); Renata Holod and Dari Rastorfer.
eds., Architecture and Community: Building in the Islamic
World Today (New York: 1983).

agriculture

Agriculture is farming — cultivating the land to
produce crops and raising and caring for livestock.
Archaeologists have found the earliest known evi-
dence for the domestication of plants and animals,
which occurred before 8000 b.c.e., in mountainous
areas of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Palestine. Farm-
ing, assisted by irrigation technology, contributed
to the rise of the first cities in the river valleys of

ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Egypt by 3100
B.C.E., and it shaped significantly the pre-lslamic
religious beliefs and practices of these civilizations.
Contrary to the stereotype of nomads traveling
across vast deserts, during the era of medieval
Islamicate civilization (seventh century to 17th
century C.E.), settled agriculture was the real basis
of the economy and remains so to this day in
many countries where Muslims are a majority of
the population. Moreover, cotton and many foods
consumed today, such as rice, citrus fruits, sugar,
and COFFEE, were introduced to Europe and the
Americas via Islamicate lands in the Middle East,
where they had been transplanted from Asia and
Africa during the Middle Ages.

The importance of agriculture in Islamicate
societies is reflected in Islamic religion and reli-

Vegetable market, Marrakesh, Morocco (Federico R. Campo)

'Css^D

22 agriculture

gious law. The Quran mentions that God is the
source of water for plants that yield foods such as
dates, grapes, olives, and pomegranates (Q 6:99),
and that he has provided humans with animals
whose fur supplies material for making houses
and furnishings (Q 16:80-83). Also, according to
the Quran, the paradise that awaits believers in the
AFTERLIFE is described as a meadow or lush garden
with fruit-laden trees and rivers flowing with
water, milk, honey, and wine (Q 47:13). Of all the
plants mentioned in the Quran, the date palm,
which is emblematic of settled life, is the one that
receives the most attention. It is considered a sign
of God's generosity toward humans and is said to
have provided Mary with shelter and nourishment
while she was giving birth to Jesus (Q 19:23-25).
In the decoration of mosques, illuminated book
manuscripts, and Oriental carpets, Muslims have
often used botanic and floral themes inspired
not by wild plants and flowers but by cultivated
ones. The animals Muslims sacrifice on religious
holidays and other ritual occasions arc invariably
domesticated livestock: sheep, goats, cattle, and
camels. Until recently, the amount of income a per-
son was required to pay in fulfillment of the zakat
(almsgiving) duty in Islam was usually assessed
in terms of the size of the harvest and number of
heads of livestock owned. Also, according to the
sharia, non-Muslim subjects were obliged to pay
a special tax on their agricultural lands and crops,
a requirement that later was extended to Muslim
subjects, too. This was an important source of
wealth for Islamic empires.

By about 1 200, Arab farmers had accomplished
what scholars have called a medieval agricultural
revolution that changed the food cultures of the
Middle East and later of Europe and the Americas.
By introducing Eastern irrigation technologies,
they enhanced the productivity of the land and
brought new areas under cultivation in Iraq, Syria,
Egypt, North Africa, Spain, and Sicily. At the same
time, they brought new crops from Asia, such
as citrus fruits, sugarcane, watermelon, bananas,
rice, spinach, eggplants, and perhaps the hard

wheat used in the making of semolina and pasta.
Botanical gardens where plants could be studied
probably assisted the introduction of these crops
from Asia into new climates in the Mediterranean
region. A significant body of medieval Arabic lit-
erature on agricultural science was created in con-
nection with these developments. The increased
productivity of the land helped sustain population
growth, which contributed to the rise of large
medieval cities in the Middle East and Spain, such
as Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba.

Today, as a result of European colonization in
the 19th and 20th centuries and the introduction
of modern technologies, agriculture in Muslim
lands has undergone a second revolution. New
crops (for example, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and
tobacco) and hybrids are being grown, large dams
and irrigation systems are being built, and farming
is becoming more mechanized, although much
human labor is still involved. The traditional agri-
cultural economy has become very commercial-
ized and is affected by global markets more than
in the past. It is estimated that agriculture consti-
tutes a significant part of the economy in about 34
Muslim countries and that just under 50 percent
of the world's Muslim population is involved in
agricultural production, although the trend has
been for people to migrate from rural areas to the
cities. Asa reflection of how important agriculture
is, many Muslim countries now have agricultural
colleges and government ministries that oversee
agriculture and irrigation. Agriculture in many
of these countries is nevertheless facing many
challenges. Although the Green Revolution in
the 1960s helped prevent widespread famine as
a result of rapid population growth, a number
of countries in the Middle East and Africa have
found that urbanization, pollution, soil saliniza-
tion, government inefficiency and corruption,
regional conflicts, and the forces of nature have
made it difficult to be agriculturally self-sufficient,
making them dependent on imports and aid from
international agencies and foreign governments.

See also arabesque; art; food and drink.

Ahmadiyya 23

Further reading: Richard C. Foltz, Frederick M. Denny,
and Azizan Baharudding, eds., Islam and Ecology (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003); Andrew
Watson, Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic
World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983);
World Resources Institute, World Resources (Oxford.
U.K.: Elsevier Science, 2000-01).

ahl al-bayt (Arabic: people of the house)

The ahl al-bayt in Islam is a holy family consisting
primarily of five members: the prophet Muhammad
( d. 632), Ali ibn Abi Talib (Muhammad's cousin
and son-in-law, d. 661), Fatima (Muhammad's
daughter, d. 633), and the two sons of Ali and
Fatima, Hasan (d. 669) and Husayn (d. 680). It
can also include all descendants of Muhammad's
clan, the Banu Hashim, and even all Muslims.

Muhammad’s family is highly respected by
all Muslims, but it is the Shia, followers of the
minority branch of Islam, who hold them in high-
est esteem. They regard the family of Muhammad
as pure, sinless, and divinely inspired exem-
plars of the best worldly and spiritual qualities.
Miraculous powers are assigned to members of
this family, and it is believed that they will help
their devotees enter PARADISE on JUDGEMENT Day.
The Shia also believe that Muhammad's family
produces, with God's guidance, the most quali-
fied leaders of the Muslim community, called
imams. Twelve-Imam Shiism venerates 12 such
leaders, all but one of whom suffered martyrdom
at the hands of wayward members of the Mus-
lim community. Like Christians who believe in
Jesus as a redeemer, they believe that the suffer-
ing and death of these heroic figures, especially
of Husayn, the third imam, redeem the sins of
the faithful and that the 12th imam, known as
Muhammad al-Mahdi, will arise in the future to
combat the forces of evil and inaugurate a golden
age at the end of time.

The tombs of ahl al-bayt are popular Muslim
pilgrimage sites, including those of Ali (Najaf,
Iraq), Husayn (Karbala, Iraq, and Cairo, Egypt),

Ali al-Rida (the eighth imam; Mashhad, Iran),
and of women saints such as Zaynab bint Ali
(Damascus, Syria, and Cairo, Egypt). Sufi tarjqas
include members of the holy family, especially
Ali, in their lists of spiritual teachers. Rulers of a
number of Muslim empires and states have also
claimed descent from ahl al-bayt , including the
Fatmid dynasty in Egypt (909-1171), the Alawid
dynasty of Morocco ( 1 63 1 -present), the Hash-
emite dynasty of Iraq (1921-1958) and of Jordan
(1923-present), and many of the clerics holding
power in Iran since the revolution of 1978-79.

See also Aga Khan; Alawi; imam; Shiism; ziyara.

Further reading: Mahmoud Ayoub. Redemptive Suffer-
ing in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura
in Twelver Shiism (The Hague: Mouton Publishers,
1978); Valerie Hoffman-Ladd, “Devotion to the Prophet
and His Family in Egyptian Sufism." International Jour-
nal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992): 615-637.

ahl al-kitab Sec People of the Book.

Ahmadiyya

The Ahmadiyya is a controversial Islamic mis-
sionary revival movement founded by Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad (ca. 1835-1908) in British India
during the 19th century. This movement began
in the town of Qadian in northern India in
1889, and it has spread to other parts of the
world, including Africa, Southeast Asia, Great
Britain, and North America, through the mis-
sionary activities of its adherents. Its members,
who tend to be economically prosperous, were
divided into two separate groups in 1914: the
Qadianis (also called the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Community) and the Lahoris (also called the
Ahmadiyya Association for the Propagation of
Islam). Both groups recruit new members by
conducting organized missionary programs and
active publication activities. The total size of the
Ahmadiyya community in 2001 was estimated to

24 Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid

be more than 10 million members worldwide, but
this figure is disputed. Followers claim that their
numbers are growing.

Ahmadiyya members believe that Ghulam
Ahmad was a religious renewer sent by God
because the religion of Islam was thought to have
gone into decline during the 19th century. Like
other Muslims, they consider the Quran to be
their holy book and have promoted its translation
into many languages. They also practice the Five
Pillars of Islam. However, what has made the
movement especially controversial are assertions
made by Ghulam Ahamad and his followers that
other Muslims are unbelievers ( kafirs ) and that
Ghulam Ahmad is a prophet, a promised redeemer
(mahdi), a Christlike messiah, and an incarnation
of the Hindu god Krishna. Some Christians and
Hindus, along with many Muslims, have objected
to these beliefs, and the movement was attacked
and persecuted by other Islamic groups and con-
servative religious authorities in India and later
in Pakistan. As a consequence, the Ahmadiyya
experienced internal division into the Qadiani and
Lahori branches in 1914.

The larger Qadiani branch of the Ahmadiyya
believes that it represents the only true Islam. It
emphasizes belief in the prophethood of Ghulam
Ahmad and the authority of his successors, who
carry the title of caliph. After the 1947 partition
and independence of India and Pakistan, it moved
its headquarters to Rabwa, Pakistan. The fourth
caliph, Mirza Tahir Ahmad (d. 2003), moved the
Ahmadiyya headquarters to London in the 1980s
because of heightened opposition faced in Paki-
stan. The present caliph is his son Mirza Masroor
Ahmad (b. 1950), the great grandson of Ghulam
Ahmad. The Lahori branch is more moderate in
its outlook, affirming Ghulam Ahmad's role as a
renewer, but it no longer regards him as a prophet.
It also identifies with the wider Muslim commu-
nity more readily than does the Qadiani branch.
Public riots and opposition by Sunni Muslim
groups led to an amendment to the Pakistani
constitution that declared Ahmadiyya members to

be non-Muslims in 1974, followed by an official
government ban on group activities in 1984. The
name Ahmadiyya has also been used by several
Sufi groups, especially that of the Egyptian saint
Ahmad al-Badawi (ca. 1200-76).

See also Christianity and Islam; Hinduism
and Islam; prophets and prophecy; renewal and

REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Further reading: Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Con-
tinuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and Its
Medieval Background (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1989); Muhammad Zafruilah Khan. Ahmadiyyat:
The Renaissance of Islam (London: Tabshir Publications,
1978).

Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid (1817-1898)
Indian Muslim religious reformer, political figure, and
educator

Sayyid Ahmad Khan was among the first to call
for the reform of Islam in order to make it more
compatible with modern Western thinking, the
results of which gave Muslims more of a voice
in public life under British rule. When the Brit-
ish put down the Muslim-Hindu uprising against
them in 1857 and abolished the Mughal dynasty,
Ahmad Khan felt that the only way for Muslims to
recover their influential role in India was to mod-
ernize their religion and cooperate with British
authorities. While many credit him with inspiring
the Muslim nationalist movement that led to the
creation of Pakistan in 1947, others see him more
as a modernizer and educator who valued the idea
of Hindu and Muslim cooperation with the British
in governing India.

Ahmad Khan was born to a family claiming
to be descendants of Muhammad, but of Persian
heritage, in Delhi, India. He received a limited
formal education in Urdu and Persian in prepara-
tion for government service as other members of
his family had done for generations. After holding
a string of appointments as a minor judge in a
number of north Indian towns during his 20s, he

Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi Quhafa 25

began to publish books on Delhi and Mughal his-
tory, revealing that despite his inadequate school-
ing, he had a gift for self-guided learning that
allowed him to see things in new ways. When the
1857 uprising occurred, Ahmad Khan remained
true to British authorities and subsequently took
some pains to demonstrate to them that most
Muslims had not supported the rebellion. As part
of this effort, he even published a commentary on
the Bible in 1862 to promote better understanding
between Muslims and Christians. Nonetheless,
he also felt that Indians should "honestly, openly
and respectfully speak out their grievances" to the
British (Gandhi 26).

The real turning point in his career came in
1869, when he journeyed with his two sons to
England, where one of them was to be enrolled at
Cambridge University with a government scholar-
ship. Ahmad Khan stayed in England for about a
year, became familiar with its system of higher
education, and wrote a number of essays on the
life of Muhammad. When he returned to India,
he began to publish his ideas for reforming Islam
in a new journal, Tahdhib-i akhlaq (Refinement
of morals). There he criticized areas of FIQH (tra-
ditional religious law) that dealt with polygamy,
interest, dress, and dietary rules, arguing that
many of the traditional rules conflicted with the
eternal message of the Quran, which was in com-
plete conformity with reason, or natural law. He
also called for more use of independent judgment
( ijiihad ), especially in relation to modern life. Fur-
thermore, Ahmad Khan implemented what he had
learned about British education with the founding
in 1875 of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Col-
lege in the town of Aligarh, where Muslims and
Hindus were to gain a modern education in the
arts, science, and law. He also remained involved
in Indian politics, opposing the creation of the
Indian National Congress in 1885 because he
thought that Indians had not yet reached the point
at which they could really govern themselves.
He believed a status quo arrangement between
Indian elites and the British was more realistic.

and he won support for his views from other lead-
ing Muslims and Hindus. In appreciation for his
efforts, the British awarded him a knighthood in
1888. The Indian nationalist currents prevailed,
however, despite Ahmad Khans dream of coop-
erative governance of India by British and Indian
elites. The last years of his life were spent in
Aligarh, continuing his efforts at reform and writ-
ing a modernist commentary on the Quran.

Sec also All-India Muslim League; Hinduism
and Islam; renewal and reform movements.

Further reading: Rajmohan Gandhi, Eight Lives: A
Study of the Hindu-Muslim Encounter (Albany: Slate
University of New York Press, 1986); Hafeez Malik, Sir
Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muslim Modernization in India
and Pakistan (New York: Columbia University Press,
1980).

Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi Quhafa (ca.

614-ca. 678) one of Muhammad's favorite wives
and a leading member of the early Muslim community

Aisha (Aysha) was born in Mecca to Abu Bakr
(d. 634), the close friend of Muhammad and first
CALIPH of Islam. Aisha was betrothed to Muham-
mad in the year 623 in Medina, when she was
nine years old. Aisha was the only virgin whom
Muhammad married, and she never bore any chil-
dren. She is often remembered as Muhammad's
closest and most beloved wife, as the person
having the most intimate understanding of the
Prophets practices. As a result, Aisha is credited
by Sunnis as the transmitter of more than 2,000
hadith accounts. After Muhammad's death, she
was consulted as an authority on his habits and
recommendations.

In 627, Aisha was accused by some Medinan
Muslims of committing adultery. During a jour-
ney with Muhammad and his caravan, she had
become separated from the group while searching
for a lost necklace. A young man found her and
accompanied her back to Medina safely. Rumors
began to circulate, accusing her of engaging in

26 Ajmer

illicit relations with the man. In response to this
slander, the Quran defends Aishas innocence in
Q 24:11-20.

Muhammad died when Aisha was 18 years
old; he is reported to have died in her arms in
her chambers. After the death of the third caliph,
UTHMAN ibn Affan in 655, she opposed Ali ibn Abi
Talib’s succession to the CALIPHATE, fighting against
him in the Battle of the Camel, Islam's first civil
war, in 656. For this challenge to Ali, she is often
regarded by Shii Muslims with disdain. Although
Ali was victorious, Aishas efforts reflect her deliant
and outspoken character as well as the active role
she played in political matters. After her military
defeat, Aisha returned to Medina, spending the
remainder of her life transmitting her accounts
about the Prophet. She died there in 678 at age 66
and was buried in the al-Baqi CEMETERY.

Sec also Sunnism; Women.

Aysha A. Hidayatullah

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in
Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press. 1992); Denise A. Spell-
berg, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy
of Aisha bint Abi Bakr (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1994).

Ajmer

Ajmer is a major Muslim pilgrimage center located
in central Rajasthan in the northwest of India. It
has been an urban settlement since at least the
11th century and is located in a region of con-
siderable religious significance to Hindus, Jains,
and Muslims. After Muslim armies of the Ghurid
dynasty (1 149-1206) conquered the Hindu Chau-
han dynasty in 1193, Ajmer alternated between
Muslim and Hindu rulers until British annexation
in 1818.

Ajmer is most famous for being home to the
shrine ( dargah ) of Khawaja Muin al-Din (or Mui-
nuddin) Chishti (1135-1229), often called the

Prophet of India (nabi ul-Hind). Muin al-Din, also
known as Gharib Nawaz (the helper of the poor),
is undoubtedly the most important and popular of
India's many Sufi saints. The Sufi order deriving
from him is known as the Chishtiyya, the largest
in South Asia, with branches in Southeast Asia,
Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The Chishtiyya
are known for their advocacy of poverty, avoid-
ance of political power, and meditative practices
involving the audition of music ( samaa ) and
devotional songs known as qawwali. Pilgrimage to
Ajmer is claimed by some to be a substitute for the
HAJJ if one is unable to afford the expense of travel
to Mecca. All of the Mughal emperors supported
the tomb, sponsoring buildings and two giant
vessels for the preparation of charitable food offer-
ings to the saint. The tomb of Muin al-Din Chishti
remains one of the most important pilgrimage
sites in India, drawing Sikhs, Christians, and Hin-
dus as well as Muslims from all over the region,
the country, and the world. Since 1955, the shrine
has had the distinction of being the only major
religious site in India with its own act of parlia-
ment specifying its management system. The
Dargah Khwaja Saheb Act stipulates an adminis-
trator (nicam) along with an 1 1-mcmber oversight
board. These officials work with varying degrees
of amity with the traditional managers ( khudam ),
descendants of the Khwaja's close followers who
perform the ritual care of the tomb itself and the
council that oversees the qawwali. Ajmer is also
home to a famous mosque said to have been built
by Shams al-Din lltutmish (r. 1211-36) from the
ruins of a temple known as the Two and a Hall
Day Mosque, or Dhai Din ki Masjid. There are
several forts in the area, one predating the Muslim
conquest and several built afterward. Among the
later mosques is one built by the Mughal emperor
Akbar (r. 1556-1605), who is said to have twice
performed the pilgrimage to Ajmer on foot from
his capital at Fatehpur Sikri near Agra.

See also Delhi Sultanate; Chishti Sufi Order;
Mughal dynasty; Sufism; ziyara.

Anna Bigelow

Akhbari School 27

Furlher reading: P. M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of
M uin Al-Din Chishti of Ajmer (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1989); Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B. Lawrence,
Sufi Martyrs of Love (New York: Palgravc Macmillan,
2002 ).

Akbar (1542-1605) the most famous emperor
of India's Mughal dynasty, known for liberal religious
attitudes

Abu al-Fath Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar was
the third and most famous ruler of the Mughal
dynasty in India. The son of Humayun (d. 1556)
and his Persian wife Hamida Banu, Akbar was
born at Umarkot in Sind, northwest India (now
part of Pakistan), lie came to power as a teen-
ager in 1556 and ruled as emperor ( padshah )
until his death in 1605. During his reign, Akbar
guided the expansion of the Mughal Empire from
its bases in Delhi and Lahore to Rajasthan and
Afghanistan in the west, the Himalaya Mountains
in the north, Orissa and Bengal in the east, and
the northern Deccan Plateau in the south. Akbars
empire dominated India’s Indus and Ganges plain.
Its centralized government grew wealthy from
plunder, tribute, and new tax revenues from agri-
cultural expansion, as well as a significant influx
of silver from the New World as a result of trade
with European countries.

A flexible attitude toward religion became an
important part of Akbars strategy of governance
as he sought to both consolidate his power among
fellow Muslims plus win the support of his Hindu
subjects. He sponsored the hajj to Mecca and
patronized Sunni and Shii ULAMA. He included
members of the Hindu aristocracy in his govern-
ment, cancelled taxes imposed on Hindu pilgrims
and landholders, and observed Hindu festivals.
His HAREM included Christian and Hindu as well
as Muslim wives. Akbar performed pilgrimages
on foot to the shrine of Muin al-Din Chishti (d.
1236) in Ajmer and built a white marble tomb for
another Sufi saint, Salim al-Chishti, in Fatehpur
Sikri, the new capital he constructed near Agra in

1571. Although Akbar himself was illiterate and
possibly dyslexic, he funded the translation of
Hindu religious texts and held dialogues between
representatives of different religions in the House
of Worship, a special pavilion in the Fatehpur
Sikri palace. Portrayed by his supporters as a sun
king and perfect man whose divine light brought
peace to the universe, Akbar even attempted to
found a new religion for his court known as the
Religion of God (Din-i Ilahi). Conservative Sunni
ulama opposed Akbars pluralistic views and inno-
vations, but their reaction did not gain a foothold
in the palace until after his death. He was buried
in a magnificent tomb near Agra in 1605.

See also Chishti Sufi Order; Hinduism and
Islam; Sirhindi, Ahmad.

Further reading: K. A. Nizami, Akbar and Religion
(New Delhi: Idarah-i-Adabiyat-i-Delli, 1989); John F
Richards, The Mughal Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).

Akhbari School

The Akhbari School was an influential branch of
Shii jurisprudence (fiqh) from the 17th century to
the 19th century in Iran, Iraq, parts of the Ara-
bian Peninsula, and India. Its name comes from
the Arabic word akhbar, which means “reports" or
“traditions," especially traditions about the say-
ings and actions of any of the 1 2 Shii Imams (holy
men descended from the house of the prophet
Muhammad). The Akhbaris, under the leader-
ship of Mulla Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi (d.
1623), advocated that the sharia must be based on
the authentic traditions of these infallible Imams
and the Quran. The traditions are found in four
books, which were assembled in the 10th and
11th centuries. If there is no reliable or explicit
tradition from the imams on a legal matter, then
a ruling about that matter is not valid. The Akh-
baris rejected the Usuli School of jurists, who
placed emphasis on independent legal reasoning
(ijtihad); they did not require explicit reports from

^ 28 Alawi

the Imams to make a ruling. The Akhbaris were
therefore legal literalists who feared ijtihad would
corrupt the authentic Islamic tradition. Although
the Usulis triumphed over them in the 19th cen-
tury, they still have a respected place in the wider
Shii community of scholars.

See also ahl al-bayt; imam; Shiism; Twelve Imam
Shiism.

Further reading: Robert Gleave, Inevitable Doubt: Two
Theories of Shii Jurisprudence (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000);
Mojan Momen, An Introduction to Shii Islam (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985).

Alawi

Technically meaning “pertaining to Ali" in Arabic,
Alawi is a name for individuals or groups with a
special attachment to Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 662).
The importance of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law
of the prophet Muhammad, in Islamic history has
led to use of this term for a variety of organiza-
tions and groups of people, which are known col-
lectively as Alawiyya. Descendants of Ali through
either of his sons Hasan (d. 669) and Husayn (d.
680) — and thus descendants of Muhammad (d.
632) through his daughter Fatima (d. 633) — are
often called Alawi , in addition to being known as
sharifs or sayyids. Supporters of Ali in the political
struggle over the caliphate in early Islamic history
are sometimes also referred to as Alawi, though
they are more commonly called Shii. Also, claim-
ing descent from Ali and Fatima has been used to
legitimate a form of local ruling dynasties, some
of which have carried the name Alawi, the prime
example being the Alawid dynasty, which has
ruled Morocco since the 17th century.

Because Ali is considered by most Sufis to
represent the esoteric interpretation of the Quran,
many Sufi orders trace their spiritual lineages
back to him and are known as Alawi orders, as
opposed to Bakri orders such as the Naqshbandi-
yya Sufi Order, which trace their lineages to Abu
Bakr (d. 634), the first caliph. Other orders were

named Alawi because of their leaders' presumed
blood descent from Ali, such as the Alawiyya
order of Hadramawt (in the southern region of the
Arabian Peninsula) and the Alawiyya branch of
the Darqawi order in Algeria, which was formed
by Ahmad al-Alawi (d. 1934) in the early 20th
century.

The two largest religious groups carrying the
name Alawi are hereditary groups whose devotion
to Ali is so intense that their belief systems are
considered heretical by orthodox Sunnis, and they
have both been persecuted by them. The Arab
Alawis (historically known as Nusayris) of Syria,
Lebanon, and southern Turkey and the Turkish
and Kurdish Alevis (Turkish rendering of Alawi;
historically known as Kizilbash) of Turkey have
each preserved esoteric beliefs and secret practices
for centuries by living secluded in remote areas in
their respective countries. Both see Ali as divine;
rather than regarding him as a historical figure,
they believe in a cosmic Ali who embodies a mani-
festation of God.

Alevis in Turkey conduct ceremonies in which
mystical songs arc sung and a spiritual dance is
performed. Numbering several million, they have
in recent years become more open about their
beliefs and practices and arc presently attempt-
ing to negotiate a distinctive identity vis-a-vis the
nationalist state and Sunni majority. The Arab
Alawis limit transmission of their secret beliefs to
those who have been formally initiated into their
community. Though they constitute a minority
in Syria, certain members of the sect have estab-
lished themselves in important military positions
there and have even managed to assume political
control over the country through the Syrian Baath
Party.

See also ahl al-bayt ; ghulat; Husayn ibn Ali;
sharif; Shiism; Sufism; tafsir; tariqa.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Krisztina Kehl-Bodrogi, Barbara Kell-
ner-Hcinkcle, and Anke Otter-Beaujean, eds., Syncretis-
tic Religious Communities in the Near East (New York:

alchemy 29

E.J. Brill, 1997); Matti Moosa, Extremist Shiites: The
Ghulat Sects (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,
1988); Tord Olsson, Elisabeth Ozdalga, and Catharina
Raudvere, Alevi Identity: Cultural, Religious and Social
Perspectives (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute in
Istanbul, 1998); J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders
in Islam (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971).

Alawid dynasty (1668-present)

The current ruling dynasty of Morocco, the
Alawis are one of the few precolonial monarchies
to successfully transition into the era of inde-
pendent nation-states. The dynasty first arose in
southeastern Morocco and established its author-
ity throughout the country during the 1660s,
under the leadership of Mulay Rashid (d. 1672).
Throughout the next 240 years, Alawid sultans
ruling from Fez or Meknes were usually able to
control the main urban centers and allied tribes
(bilad al-makhzen ), but they did not receive more
than cursory allegiance from the rural hinterlands
(bilad al-siba).

The situation changed with the establish-
ment of the French protectorate over Morocco in
1912. The French pursued a policy of divide and
rule while trying to maintain the illusion of local
governance through a compliant Alawid SULTAN
(now called “king"). However, King Muhammad
V used this approach against them when he rallied
nationalist support around his passive resistance
to French authority. In 1956, the French adminis-
tration recognized Moroccan independence under
the leadership of its traditional monarchy.

In many ways, the centralizing influence of
the French allowed the Alawis to consolidate their
control to a degree that was not possible prior to
the protectorate. Although the new nation estab-
lished institutions for participatory government,
such as elections and a national assembly, author-
ity remained firmly in the hands of the monarchy.
Alawid kings (such as Hasan II, r. 1961-99) used
their status as sharifs (descendants of the prophet
Muhammad) to highlight their religiopolitical

authority as “Commander of the Faithful.” This
undercut the rise of radical Islamic challenges to
their leadership. The current king, Muhammad VI,
seeks to bring much-needed reforms to Moroccan
society while retaining ultimate political power.
Having ruled Morocco for some 335 years, the
Alawid dynasty shows no signs of relinquishing
power any time soon.

See also AHL AL-BAYT; COLONIALISM.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: John R Halstead, Rebirth of a Nation:
The Origins and Rise of Moroccan Nationalism (Cam-
bridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1967); Abdallah
Laroui, The History of the Maghrib: An Interpretive Essay
(Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977).

alchemy (Arabic: al-kimiya)

Alchemy is a combination of chemistry and magi-
cal knowledge that originated with the Greeks,
developed in Islamicate lands, and was transmit-
ted from there to medieval Europe. The outward
purpose of alchemy was to transform base metals
such as lead into precious ones such as silver and
gold. Alchemists engaged in a range of related
efforts, such as trying to create life and search-
ing for a medicine to prolong it — an elixir of
immortality. Their ideas recognized the ancient
Greek division of the natural world into four ele-
ments (earth, fire, water, and air) plus four quali-
ties (hot, cold, moist, and dry). They believed
in astrology, too, which meant that alchemists
thought there was a correspondence between the
heavenly world and the earthly world. All mat-
ter and spirit, though outwardly different, were
really one in essence. Alchemy seeks to play upon
this supposed inner unity to change or transform
an imperfect or lesser phenomenon into a more
perfect, purified one. Not only might lead be
transformed into gold, but the human soul itself
could be purified of worldly stain. In attempting
this, alchemy merges with metaphysics. Muslim

30 alcohol

alchemists accepted that God was the first creator
of the cosmos, but they believed humans could
also become creators if they could only unlock
the secrets of the universe's elements and qualities
and learn how to transform them through their
laboratory experimentation.

Although there is a substantial body of medi-
eval Arabic texts on alchemy, the subject is in
need of more study before a definitive history
can be written. It appears to have become an
important topic in Islamicate lands during the
ninth and 10th centuries, but some Muslim reli-
gious authorities refuted its doctrines because
they deviated from what they believed to be true
Islam. Early Arabic alchemical literature consisted
of translations of Greek texts, especially those
associated with Hermes Trismegistos, a mystical
figure who was identified with the ancient Egyp-
tian god of writing and wisdom, Thoth. Indeed,
Egypt was thought to be the ancient homeland
of the alchemical tradition. To give it a more
Islamic stamp, authors constructed a genealogy of
sources that included a curious variety of figures
such as Al.l IBN Abi Talib (Muhammad’s cousin, d.
661), Maria the Copt (one of Muhammad's con-
cubines), Khalid ibn Yazid (an Umayyad prince,
d. 683), Jaafar al-Sadiq (the sixth Shii imam, d.
765), and a number of Sufis. The grand master
of the Islamic alchemical tradition wasjabir ibn
Hayyan (d. 815), a shadowy historical figure
with Sufi and Shii affinities who was said to have
been a friend and disciple of Jaafar al-Sadiq in
Baghdad. He was credited with authoring a huge
body of alchemical literature, some of which
was translated into Latin and transmitted from
Andalusia to Europe, where it helped inspire the
Renaissance tradition of alchemy. Indeed, modern
scholars have concluded that Arab alchemy, with
its experimental undertakings and theoretical
outlook, played a key role in the development of
modern chemistry.

Further reading: S. Nomanul Haq. Names , Natures , and
Things: The Alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan and His Kitab al-

ahjar (Booh of Stones) (Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer
Academic. 1994); Donald R. Hill, “The Literature of
Arabic Alchemy." In Religion, Learning and Science in the
Abbasid Period, edited by M. J. L. Young, J. D. Latham,
and R. B. Sergeant, 328-341 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990).

alcohol See dietary laws; food and drink.

Alevi See Alawi.

Alexander the Great (356-323 b.c.e.)

youthful conqueror of the ancient world and heroic
figure in Islamic tradition

Alexander (Arabic: Iskandar), the youthful king of
Macedonia, is considered the greatest conqueror
of classical Greek and Roman times (fourth cen-
tury b.c.e. to fourth century C.E.). He is the heroic
subject of the Alexander Romance, a cycle of sto-
ries that contributed to the high esteem in which
he is held in Islamic tradition.

One should distinguish the legendary content
of the Alexander Romance from the historical
figure Alexander the Great. The fabulous deeds
of the renowned world conqueror are celebrated
in medieval literature of the East and the West.
There exist romances on Alexander in medieval
English, Spanish, French, and German as well
as in Ethiopic, Syriac, Armenian, Persian, and
Arabic. The first known reference to Alexander
in Arabic literature is in the Quran (Q 18:83-98),
where he is called Dhu al-Qarnayn, the “Two-
Horned One." The presence of this brief allusion
in the sacred book of Islam transforms the Greek
pagan Alexander into a Muslim holy man, and
Muslim commentators debated over whether he
was a prophet. As the Islamic empire spread out
from Mecca and Medina into the ancient lands
of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and westward to Spain,
quranic exegetes and storytellers of the eighth
through 10th centuries from Baghdad to North

Algeria 31

Africa sought to elucidate the identity of the
Two-Horned One by collecting tales from diverse
sources, including Arabic geographical compendi-
ums, local oral literature, the Bible, and the Torah
and attributing them to Dhu al-Qarnayn.

By the turn of the first millennium C.E., the
romance of Alexander in Arabic had a core cen-
tered on the Greek legendary material from a
work of the second or third century C.E. known
as the Pseudo-Callisthenes , wherein the young
king and student of Aristotle defeats the Persian
army and goes on to take India, China, and lands
in between, including the land of the Amazon
women, before dying at the age of 32 without
making it back home. This material is usually
placed in the mouth of the prophet Muham-
mad, who characterized Dhu al-Qarnayn as one
of the faithful whom the Lord had entrusted
with the mission of delivering Gods message to
the remote corners of the earth in preparation
for the coming of Islam. Interwoven later into
this narrative in the Talcs of the Prophets litera-
ture were episodes of an apparent Arab-lslamic
elaboration: the construction of a great barrier
to keep the barbarian tribes of Gog and Magog
from harassing the people of the civilized world
until Judgement Day, the voyage to the end of the
Earth to witness the sun set in a pool of boiling
mud, and Dhu al-Qarnayns expedition into the
Land of Darkness in search of the Fountain of
Life accompanied by his companion Khadir (the
Green-One). God veils from Dhu al-Qarnayn
the spring of rejuvenating waters because he
has become too ambitious in seeking to reveal
the secrets of Gods creation. For example, he
enters forbidden lands inhabited by angels and
knocks on the doors of paradise itself. The theme
of the hero's arrogance is delicately balanced
with his piety as seen in his frequent prayer for
the strength to complete his mission to call the
people of the earth to humble themselves before
their creator. Relating numerous encounters
with sea serpents, beasts, angels, and enchanted
castles, the medieval Islamic versions of the

Alexander legend were a favorite among Muslim
peoples for many centuries.

See also Arabic language and literature;

PROPHETS AND PROPHECY.

Z. David Zuwiyya

Further reading: Wheeler M. Thackston, trans., Tales of
the Prophets (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978); Albert
Mugrdich Wolohojian, trans.. The Romance of Alexander
the Great by Pseudo-Callisthenes (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1969); Z. David Zuwiyya, Islamic Leg-
ends of Alexander the Great (Binghamton, N.Y.: Global
Publications, 2001).

Algeria (Official name: People’s
Democratic Republic of Algeria)

One of the largest countries in Africa and the Arab
world, Algeria (Arabic: al-Jazair) is located on the
Mediterranean coast bordered by Tunisia and Libya
to the east, by Morocco to the west, and to the
south across the Sahara desert by Western Sahara,
Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. It is approximately
2.4 million square kilometers, or the equivalent
of the continental United States west of the Rocky
Mountains. Its population of approximately 33
million (2008) is of mixed Berber and Arab eth-
nicity (except a 1 percent European minority)
and largely Sunni Muslim. Religious minorities
include Christians and Jews (1 percent). Although
the official language of Algeria is Arabic, French
and various Berber (Amazigh) languages arc also
widely spoken. Asserting a distinct Berber lan-
guage and ethnicity is an important issue for
many communities centered in the Kabyle region.
Geographically, while the northern regions are
mountainous and provide fertile agricultural land,
more than 80 percent of the country lies in the
Sahara, where rich hydrocarbon and mineral
resources are found. The major cities are the capi-
tal, Algiers, Constantine, Tlemcen, and Oran.

As early as the fifth century b.c.e., Algeria's
indigenous people, Berbers, had established com-

- 4 = 5 ^

32 Aligarh

plex economies and within two centuries formed
two major kingdoms. The region was then ruled
by Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, and ultimately
Arabs, who in the seventh century c.E. invaded
from the east, initiating a long slow process of
Arabization and Islamization of the native popula-
tion. Political rule of the area for Arabs remained
elusive, however, alternating between Berber king-
doms and Arab dynasties until the 16th century,
when Ottomans extended their power south from
Istanbul and took control of Algeria. Throughout
this period. North Africa provided a vital corridor
for economic and cultural exchanges between the
Middle East, Islamicate Spain, and sub-Saharan
Africa. Also notable in this period was the devel-
opment of prominent Sufi ( marabout ) brother-
hoods (including the Qadiriyya, Tijaniyya, and
Rahmaniyya) that were organized around char-
ismatic spiritual leaders and were renowned for
fostering spiritual and political communities that
transcended powerful tribal affiliations.

From 1830 to 1962, France occupied and
administered Algeria as a colony. Early resistance
was led by Abd al-Qadir, a young man educated
in the Qadiri Sufi Order, but ended in his defeat
in 1847 and exile to Damascus in 1855. Algerians
ultimately gained independence from France on
July 5, 1962, after a protracted and bloody war
lasting eight years. They established a secular
socialist state led by the revolutionary FLN (Front
de Liberation National) party, which has governed
uninterrupted until the present day. During the
cold war, Algeria became prominent in the non-
aligned movement, a bloc of countries committed
to creating a third world force through a policy of
nonalignment to the United States and the Soviet
Union. Beginning in the 1980s, the state faced an
increasingly powerful Islamic opposition move-
ment that resulted in major electoral victories
for the FIS (Front Islamic du Salut) in 1990 and
1991. The military responded by nullifying the
election results, which touched off years of vio-
lence between militant Islamist groups and the
Algerian military in which up to 100,000 civil-

ians are believed to have been killed. By 2005,
the major violence had subsided, and moderate
Islamist groups were brought into the govern-
ment. Many core issues such as the role of religion
in Algerian society, government corruption, and
the desire of Kabylie Berbers for more autonomy
remain unresolved.

See also Almohad dynasty; Ottoman dynasty;
politics and Islam; Sufism.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Robert Mai ley, The Call from Alge-
ria: Third Worldism , Revolution, and the Turn to Islam
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Hugh
Roberts, The Battlefield: Algeria 1988-2002 , Studies in
a Broken Polity (New York: Verso, 2003); John Rucdy,
Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992).

Aligarh

A city in Uttar Pradesh (a state in northern India),
Aligarh first came under Muslim influence at the
end of the 12th century during the rule of Qutb
al-Din Aybak (r. 1206-11), the sultan at Delhi.
Ibn Battuta (d. 1369), the great Muslim traveler,
visited Aligarh during his journeys in India. The
region remained under Muslim rule through the
Mughal period until 1785, when it was conquered
by the Hindu Marathas and eventually annexed by
the British in 1803.

The town is most famous for an educational
institute founded by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d.
1898) in 1871. Beginning as a boys’ school in
1878, the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO)
College was incorporated there. The curriculum
incorporated Islamic sciences with instruction
in Arabic and modern education modeled on
the British system with instruction in English.
Although the colleges mission has always been
focused on uplifting the Muslim population of
India, the enrollment has also been open to non-
Muslims. The goal of the institution was to ere-

AM ibn Abi Talib 33

ate an educational center that could produce a
progressively educated Muslim population who
could excel under the British regime as the Hin-
dus had. Ahmad Khan himself advocated a critical
revaluation of Islamic law in which the Quran
and the hadith (to a limited extent) would be
considered. He believed true Islam was a wholly
rational faith and entirely compatible with mod-
ern science. Nonetheless, the Islamic studies
curriculum was not confined to Ahmad Khans
idiosyncratic approach. Several faculty members
at the college, including an Arabic instructor, have
been Europeans. MAO College became Aligarh
University in 1920, and in 1925, the women's
MADRASA that had been affiliated with it became
the Aligarh Womens College. The university now
has four areas of study: arts, science, engineering,
and THEOLOGY. It became a center for nationalist
politics during India's struggle for independence,
with some of its students and faculty promoting a
united India, while others actively supported the
creation of Pakistan as a separate Muslim state.
Many faculty departed with the partition in 1947,
but Aligarh continues to be a top university to the
present day.

See also All-India Muslim League; Hindu-
ism and Islam; renewal and reform movements;
SECULARISM.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: David Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Gen-
eration: Muslim Solidarity in British India (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977); K. A. Nizami,
History of the Aligarh Muslim University (Delhi: Idarah-i
Adabiyat-i Delli, 1995).

Ali ibn Abi Talib (ca. 597-661 ) cousin and
son-in-law of Muhammad, the fourth caliph of the
Sunni Muslim community, and first imam of the Shia

A native of Mecca, he was one of the first persons
to accept Islam after Muhammad's wife Khadija
(d. 619). He grew up in Muhammad's household

and married his daughter Fatima. Ali's courage in
battle at Badr (624) and elsewhere converted him
into a chivalric hero and warrior saint of Muslim
lore.

Ali is the focus of controversy in the succes-
sion to leadership of the Muslim community after
Muhammad's death in 632. This resulted in the
sectarian division between Sunni and Shii Islam.
The partisans (shia) of Ali believed that Muham-
mad appointed him his successor following the
Farewell Pilgrimage to Mecca a few months
before Muhammad's death. Many Shia have con-
sidered this a divinely inspired designation that
included the descendants of Muhammad's house-
hold through Ali.

Following Muhammad's death, Abu BAKR (d.
634) was elected as the first CALIPH. In order to
avoid a division in the early Muslim community,
Ali recognized Abu Bakr's right to rule and that of
the next two caliphs, Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 644)
and Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656). Ali was elected the
fourth caliph under controversial circumstances
following the murder of Uthman. Accused of
complicity in the assassination, Ali's period of rule
was mired in civil war with his rival, Muawiya ibn
Abi Sufyan, leader of the powerful Umayya clan
of Mecca. His support dwindled when a faction,
the Khawarij (secccssionists), rebelled against him
during the Battle of Siffin (657) because he had
submitted the conflict with Muawiya to arbitra-
tion. Ali's forces succeeded in defeating these reb-
els at Nahrawan in 658, but one of the Khawarij
assassinated him in Kufa, Iraq, in 661. Muawayya
(r. 660-80) became the next caliph and founded
the Umayyad Caliphate in Syria.

While some “extremist" Shiis virtually deify
Ali, most consider belief in Muhammad's des-
ignation of Ali as his successor a religious duty
alongside belief in the oneness of God and the
prophethood of Muhammad. The martyrdom
of Ali, and especially the massacre of his son
al-Husayn and his companions at the Battle of
Karbala (680), made the paradigm of redemptive
suffering a characteristic of Shii salvation history.

34 Allah

Shiis and many Sufis regard him as a saint for his
renowned ASCETICISM. Indeed, many Sufi orders
trace the genealogy of their spiritual descent ( sil -
sila ) directly back to Ali. Ali is remembered as a
model of socio-political and religious righteous-
ness that defied worldly corruption and social
injustice. His shrine in Najaf, Iraq, is a major pil-
grimage site, and the feast of Ghadir Khumm (18
Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth month on the Muslim
calendar), which commemorates Muhammad's
appointment of Ali as his successor, is an impor-
tant holiday for Shii Muslims.

Sec also ahl al-bayt; fitna. Shiism.

Linda G. Jones

Further reading: S. H. M. Jafri, The Origins and Early
Development of Shia Islam (London and New York:
Longman, 1979); Wilfcrd Madclung. The Succession to
Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977); Abu Jafar Muham-
mad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari. Trans-
lated by C. E. Bosworth ct al. (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1985-).

Allah

The Arabic term Allah is the main one used for the
unique deity worshipped in the Islamic religion.
It is a contraction that literally means “the God"
(Arabic: al-ilah ), and it occurs about 2,700 times
in the Quran alone. Belief in only one god who is
all-powerful and merciful and who has no partners
or equals is the most important Islamic doctrine,
and Muslims constantly express it in their wor-
ship, religious music, and visual arts. For example,
the shahada, the first pillar of Islam, requires
that Muslims testify “There is no god but God
(Allah)." This phrase is repeated in daily prayers
and is written on mosques, banners, and post-
ers in all Muslim communities. Among the most
important statements about God in the Quran are
those found in the chapter entitled “Sincerity” (Q
112) and in the “Throne Verse" (Q 2:255), which

states, “Allah! There is no god but he, the living,
the everlasting. He neither rests nor sleeps.” The
monotheistic ideal also dominates Islamic theol-
ogy, philosophy, law, and even its historical vision.
On the basis of the Quran, hadith, and religious
doctrine, Muslims believe that Allah is the same
god worshipped by Jews and Christians. It should
also be noted that Arabic-speaking followers of
Judaism and Christianity in the Middle East use
the word Allah for God, although their theologies
differ from those of Muslims.

Historical evidence indicates that Allah was
the name of an ancient Arabian high god in a
pantheon of other gods and goddesses like those
found in other ancient Middle Eastern cultures.
Worshipping him as the only real god may have
started before the seventh century in Arabia, but
it was in the Quranic revelations delivered by
Muhammad as the prophet of Islam between 610
and 632 that the monotheistic ideal received its
first clear expression among Arab peoples. In the
Quran, Allah is portrayed as the creator of the
universe who brings life and death, never sleeps,
and knows, sees, and hears everything. He is both
eternal and infinite, and unlike the ancient gods,
he does not have parents or children. This belief
also rejects Christian notions of God as a father
and Jesus as his son. In the Quran, God com-
mands human beings to remember him and to
submit to him, but he also shows them his kind-
ness and compassion. He sends prophets such as
Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad to guide
people to salvation. He can reward them for their
faith and good deeds and punish them for their
infidelity and sins. As master of Judgment Day,
he will resurrect the dead at the end of time and
hold them accountable for what they did in their
lives, which means that he can either let them
enter the gardens of paradise or send them to the
fire of hell.

According to the prevailing opinion in Islam,
God cannot be completely known or perceived by
the human mind or the senses; rather than being
close by, he stands at great distance from his ere-

All-India Muslim League 35

ation. He also cannot be represented in a picture
or statue, which is considered to be IDOLATRY.
However, he can be partially known through the
Quran, which is his speech, and the “signs" he
provides in nature and the course of history. He
can also be known through his qualities, many
of which are described in the 99 names of God.
Muslims through the centuries have nonetheless
sought to bridge the gap between God and cre-
ation with intermediary figures such as ANGELS,
prophets, and saints. Among the Shia, imams
(revered descendants of Muhammad's family)
play this role. An important part of the Islamic
mystical tradition understood the universe to be
the result of emanations of light from God, which
were embodied most fully by the PERFECT Man.
Some mystics believed this to be the idealized
Adam or Muhammad and that those with true
spiritual insight might therefore come to know
God through this reality. Others anticipated a
mystical vision of God in the course of a spiritual
ascent or in the afterlife.

See also anthropomorphism; aya ; Five Pillars;
monotheism; prophets and prophecy.

Further reading: Sachiko Murata and William C.
Chittick, The Vision of Islam (New York: Paragon
House, 1994); Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes in the
Quran (Minneapolis and Chicago: Bilbliotheca Islamica,
1980); W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy and
Theology: An Extended Survey 2d cd. (Edinburgh: Edin-
burgh University Press, 1985).

All-India Muslim League (also known as
the Muslim League)

Incorporated in December 1906 in Dacca (in mod-
ern Bangladesh), the All-India Muslim League
(AIML) played a leading role in the Indian inde-
pendence movement and the creation of Pakistan.
It grew out of the Aligarh movement that had
aimed to give Muslims more of a voice in British
India. It supported British rule until 1912, when,
under the leadership of the journalist and reformer

Muhammad Ali (d. 1931), a resolution was passed
calling for self-government. During World War
1, however, the AIML again supported the Brit-
ish, as did the Indian National Congress (INC),
the main Indian nationalist organization. During
this period, the INC and AIML worked together,
and both organizations passed the Lucknow Pact
in 1916 calling for a wider franchise for Indians,
larger representations for Indians on councils and
in regional governments, and separate electorates
for Muslims. During these proceedings, Muham-
mad Ali Jinnah (d. 1948) emerged as one of the
chief figures in the AIML.

Jinnah, a lawyer, had joined the INC in 1896
and the AIML in 1913. In 1920, Jinnah quit the
INC in opposition to the management of INC
leader Mohandas K. Gandhi's (d. 1948) first anti-
British action that ended in some chaos. The break
between the INC and the AIML and other Muslim
organizations continued to widen as the indepen-
dence struggle developed. By the 1930s, Muslim
demands for protections were increasingly ignored
as the INC emerged as the chief Indian negotiator
with the colonial government. Up to this point,
the AIMLs efforts to position itself as the sole
voice for India's Muslim population had not been
very successful, and a large number of seats in
local legislative councils were lost in the 1935
elections. The AIML was widely seen as an urban,
elite. Westernized organization out of touch with
both the largely rural population and the Muslim
religious establishment. After the 1935 electoral
losses, Jinnah led the campaign to consolidate
the Muslim vote, eventually establishing himself
and the AIML as the “sole spokesman" for Indian
Muslim interests. In 1940, Jinnah and the AIML
met at Lucknow and called for a separate state for
India's Muslims. At first, this initiative got a luke-
warm reception, especially in Punjab and Bengal,
the regions with the largest Muslim populations,
where local coalition parties of landlords based in
the countryside were more successful. However,
due to the INC's apparent Hindu bias, their oppo-
sition to significant concessions to Muslims, and

36 Almohad dynasty

the activism of Jinnah and other AIML leaders, the
tide was turned. The AIML emerged victorious in
the 1945 elections, winning 460 of 533 Muslim
legislative seats.

After World War II, the final status nego-
tiations with the British (who were rapidly los-
ing interest in either retaining their authority or
seeing through the negotiations to maintain a
unified India) led to the 1947 partition of India.
Jinnah called the new Muslim majority nation of
Pakistan “moth-eaten,” as the eastern and west-
ern halves of the country were hundreds of miles
apart, separated by Hindu majority India. As the
governor-general of Pakistan, Jinnah attempted
to establish a secular constitution for the new
nation-state. However, following his death in
1948, a resolution was passed in 1950 affirming
the Islamic identity of the state in which no law
would be passed in violation of the sharia. During
the era of political turmoil that followed partition
and independence, the All-India Muslim League
disbanded, reforming as the Muslim League (ML)
in the newly independent nations. In Pakistan,
the ML failed to establish itself as an effective
political party. The lack of infrastructure, financial
crises, and the MLs secular stance contributed to
its eventual marginalization in Pakistani politics.
In Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) the ML
has not been a major factor in politics because it
is viewed as the chief architect of a Pakistan in
which the western part of the country dominated
the eastern part in terms of language, resources,
and authority. In India, the Muslim League no
longer has a significant political voice, and only
one member of parliament has represented the ML
from the state of Kerala in 1999 and 2004.

Sec also Awami League; Hinduism and Islam;

SECULARISM.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jin-
nah, the Muslim League , and the Demand for Pakistan
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985); Ian

Talbot, Provincial Politics and the Pakistan Movement:
The Growth of the Muslim League in Northwest and
Northeast India 1937-47 (Karachi: Oxford University
Press, 1988).

Almohad dynasty (1123-1269)

A movement founded in southern Morocco by
religious reformer and self-proclaimed mahdi
( messianic figure) Muhammad Ibn Tumart (1078?-
1130), the Almohads managed to unite North
Africa and Islamicate Spain under their authority
during the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
Their name derives from the Arabic al-muwahh-
idun, “those who proclaim the Gods oneness."

Upon returning to his native Morocco in
1121 after an extended trip in the Islamicate cast,
Ibn Tumart recruited followers from among the
Masmuda Berbers of the Anti-Atlas Mountains
in the region near Marrakesh. Teaching a rigor-
ous doctrine centered on the concept of God's
oneness ( tawhid ), Ibn Tumart and his disciple
Abd al-Mumin (d. 1163) organized the Berbers
into an effective fighting force. Abd al-Mumin
succeeded Ibn Tumart as caliph upon the latter's
death in 1130 and led an extended conquest of
North Africa and Islamicate Spain, taking Mar-
rakesh (1147), Seville (1147), Tunisia (1160),
and Tripolitania (1160). Upon securing Almohad
power in North Africa, Abd al-Mumin established
his family members as heads of state, bequeathing
the caliphate to his sons and grandsons.

Under the first four caliphs, the Almohad
empire reached the height of its military, politi-
cal, and cultural influence. Although they initially
experienced success in turning back the Christian
reconquest (Spanish: Reconquista) in Andalusia,
the Almohad army later suffered a disastrous defeat
at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) that left southern
Spain open for further Christian advances. The
Almohad political-religious system, administered
by a Berber elite, was initially quite cohesive, but
the Almohads failed to establish Ibn Tumart s doc-
trine as a replacement for Maliki Islam, and they

Almoravid dynasty 37

't?=a i D

began to lose control of the remote regions of their
empire by the early 13th century. Later Almohad
caliphs would publicly disown the religious doc-
trines of Ibn Tumart.

Almohad cultural influences included an aus-
tere architectural style, of which numerous exam-
ples remain in Morocco and Spain. Despite earning
a reputation for intolerance toward Christian and
Jewish minorities, Almohad openness to philo-
sophical ideas allowed philosophers such as Ibn
Tufayl (d. 1 185) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198)
to expound their teachings. However, Ibn Rushd's
works were later banned and burned by the caliph
Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur (r. 1 184-99). The Sufi
movement also expanded under the Almohads,
epitomized by the influential mystic Ibn al-Arabi
( d. 1240). Nevertheless, the Almohad inability to
maintain their vast holdings, win the support of
the Maliki ulama, defeat Christian opponents in
Spain, or subdue competing Berber tribes in North
Africa led to their ultimate downfall. In 1269, the
only dynasty to successfully unite North Africa
perished, as Marrakesh fell before the rising tide of
their rivals, the Mcrinid Berbers.

See also Almoravid dynasty; Maliki Legal
School.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: Richard Fletcher. Moorish Spain
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Abd
al-Wahid al-Marrakushi, History of the Almohacles, ed.
R. Dozy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1881); Roger Le Tourncau.
The Almohad Movement in North Africa in the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1969).

Almoravid dynasty ( 1042 - 1147 )

A Berber dynasty that arose from the deserts of
southern Mauritania, the Almoravids conquered
Morocco and Islamicatc Spain during the sec-
ond half of the 11th century. The founder of the
Almoravid movement, a teacher of Maliki law

named Abd Allah ibn Yasin (d. 1058), was origi-
nally brought to the desert by a Berber chief, who
was eager for his people to receive proper Islamic
instruction. Imposing harsh religious discipline
upon the tribesmen, Ibn Yasin developed a core
group of followers, whom he later sent to conquer
the surrounding lands and enforce his rigorous
interpretation of Islam. Although Ibn Yasin was
killed in battle in 1058, his successors, Abu Bakr
ibn Umar (d. 1087) and Yusuf ibn Tashfin (d. 1106)
extended Almoravid rule southward into Ghana
and northward throughout Morocco and into Isl-
amicate Spain. After establishing their new capitol
of Marrakesh in southern Morocco, Almoravid
armies first crossed the Strait of Gibraltar in 1086
to support Muslim princes under siege from the
Christian reconqucst (Spanish: Rcconquista). By
the death of Ibn Tashfin in 1106, the Almoravids
were supreme rulers over Islam i cate Spain.

Ironically, historians since Ibn Khaldun (d.
1406) have speculated that the conquest of Spain
was actually the first step in the Almoravid
downfall. They argue that when the Almoravids
encountered the cultured lifestyle of Andalusia,
they eventually abandoned the disciplined ways
that had led to their success. Regardless, the
Almoravid military bogged down in Spain, and
their administrators encountered resistance from
the population, who resented domination by what
they thought were uncouth desert tribesmen. By
the 1140s, much of Andalusia was in open revolt,
while the Almohad movement was waging a suc-
cessful war against the Almoravids in Morocco.
The Almohad victory was complete upon the
death of the last Almoravid sultan in 1147, and
the Almoravid dynasty came to an end as sud-
denly as it had burst upon the political scene less
than 100 years earlier. However, the lasting influ-
ence of the Almoravids is seen in the continued
dominance of the Maliki Legal School, which
they helped to establish in North Africa.

See also Almohad dynasty; West Africa.

Stephen Cory

' e ^ 38 almsgiving

Further reading: Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Hugh
Kennedy Muslim Spain: A Political History of al-Andalus
(London: Longman, 1996); H. T. Norris, “New Evi-
dence on the Life of Abdullah b. Yasin and the Origins
of the Almoravid Movement.'' Journal of African History
12 (1971): 255-268.

almsgiving

Almsgiving is a form of charity. It represents an
ethical principle, embraced by most societies and
religions, that people who enjoy wealth and pros-
perity have a moral obligation to assist those who
are less fortunate and to financially support insti-
tutions that serve the needs of individuals and the
public. In Islam this obligation is understood to
be both a service to God and a service to people.
Those who perform this service arc promised
rewards in this life and in the afterlife. There arc
two basic forms of almsgiving in Islam: zahat, one
of the Five Pillars of worship, and saclac/a, a vol-
untary form of giving. Both arc authorized in the
Quran and hadith, and both are governed by the
SHARIA. Other kinds of charitable giving in Islam
are perpetual endowments (known as waqfs)
and a special tithe ( khunis ) the Shia give to their
religious leaders. Some hadith declare that almost
any act of kindness toward another is almsgiving.
The linkage of zahat with belief and worship is
expressed in the Quran:

Goodness is not that you turn your face to
the east or west. Rather goodness is that
a person believe in God, the last day, the
angels, the book, and the prophets; that he
gives wealth out of love to relatives, orphans,
the needy, travelers, slaves; that he performs
prayer, and that he gives zcihat. (Q 2:177)

Zahat is based on the Arabic word meaning “to be
pure" (zaha). Purity is a key concept in Islamic
religious thought and practice. It governs the
performance of the other religious duties — prayer.

fasting, and the hajj, as well as the dietary laws. In
regard to the act of giving zcihat , the underlying
principle is that such an act, done in kindness for
the betterment of the needy or the community,
purifies the giver and the givers property. Further-
more, the Quran promises that believers who pay
zahat will sec an increase in their own prosperity
(Q 30:39).

According to the sharia, payment of zcihat is
required of adult Muslims each year at the end of
Ramadan, the month of fasting. It is calculated on
the basis of ones net income from lawful ( halal )
sources after expenses for food, clothing, and
shelter for oneself and dependents have been paid.
Traditionally, the tax has been assessed on agri-
cultural yields, livestock production, possession
of lawful merchandise, gold, silver, and cash. The
general tax rate is 2.5 percent, but there are higher
rates for minerals extracted from the ground,
war booty, buried property belonging to people
who have perished, and property salvaged from
the sea. Based on the Quran and hadith, Muslim
jurists have also identified those who qualify to
receive alms: the hungry and the homeless, the ill,
students, recent converts, slaves so that they can
be freed, those who struggle “in the way of God,"
travelers, and those needing assistance in repaying
their debts.

Almsgiving became a religious duty after
Muhammad established the first Muslim com-
munity in Medina in 622. It was one of the first
obligations to be met by converts. The first serious
conflict over apostasy occurred when converted
Arab tribes refused to pay zcihat after Muhammad
died in 632. As the Muslim empire grew, rulers and
religious scholars systematized the rules govern-
ing almsgiving, because this was the main form of
taxation levied against Muslims for the well-being
of the community. Details on how rigorously zcihat
laws were followed are lacking for much of Islam's
history. In modern times, Muslims often give alms
privately without intervention of the state, and in
many communities assistance with payment and
calculating the amount due is available to them

alphabet 39

from zcikat committees. There are even zcikat calcu-
lators available on the Internet. People may donate
to needy individuals or to mosques, charitable
organizations, and educational institutions. Only a
few modern nations, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Libya, Pakistan, and Sudan, have attempted to
administer almsgiving through government agen-
cies. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001,
attacks on the United States, a number of Islamic
charitable organizations connected with zcikat have
been investigated or closed down in the United
States and abroad because of suspected links with
with radical groups engaging in terrorist activities.
Muslims living in the United States and Europe
have had to look for other ways to fulfill their alms-
giving obligations because of this.

Further reading: Lalch Bakhtiyar, Encyclopaedia of
Islamic Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chi-
cago: ABC International Group. 1996); Azim Nanji,
“Ethics and Taxation: The Perspective of Islamic Tradi-
tion.” Journal of Religious Ethics 13 (1983): 161-178.

alphabet

Since Islam is a religion found in many differ-
ent cultures, its followers speak many different
languages, which are written in several alphabets.
The most important of these is the Arabic alpha-
bet, consisting of 28 letters written as a script
from right to left. This means that there is no
separate printed form for individual Arabic let-
ters, as there is in English; it also means that the
shape of the letter can be affected by its position
at the beginning, middle, or end of the word. All
the letters arc consonants, but three of them can
also represent long vowels: a, i, and u. There are
no letters for the short vowels (a, i, and u); they
are either not written, or they are represented by
optional markings called diacritics written above
and below the consonants. Historically, the Arabic
alphabet evolved from ancient Semitic scripts that
were used by people living in northern Arabia
and Syria. It gained widespread use only after the

appearance of Islam in the seventh century, how-
ever. Nearly all of the most authoritative Islamic
religious texts, including the Quran, were origi-
nally written in the Arabic cursive script.

Through the centuries, as Islamic religion and
civilization spread to new lands, native peoples
began to adopt the Arabic language and use its
alphabet to write their own languages. Not all of
these people were Muslims; Middle Eastern Jews
and Christians adopted both the Arabic language
and alphabet. By the 1.0th century, Arabic letters
were adapted to write the Persian language and
then related dialects such as Kurdish and Pashto,
as well as the Turkic languages. To do this, addi-
tional consonants were required to represent
sounds occurring in those languages but that do
not occur in Arabic (for example, p as in pony,
ch as in chair, and g as in game). Urdu, which is
today the official language of Pakistan, is based on
a Persianized form of the Arabic alphabet. Arabic
letters have also been used to write languages spo-
ken in medieval Spain, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Alongside the Roman alphabet, which is used to
write English and other Western languages, the
Arabic alphabet is one of the most widely used
in the world today. Turkey, one of the largest
Muslim countries in the Middle East, switched
from the Arabic alphabet to the Roman in 1928,
when its government was being reconstituted
along strongly secular lines. However, the Arabic
alphabet is still widely used in Arab countries, and
(in its Persianized form) in Iran, Afghanistan,
and Pakistan. Moreover, it has been successfully
adapted for print media (newspapers, magazines,
books, etc.) and the internet, so it continues to
play an important role in the communication of
religious and secular information, knowledge, and
opinions in the modern world.

The Arabic alphabet is especially important in
Islam because it was used for writing the words
Muslims believe God revealed to Muhammad in
the seventh century. Most Muslims attempt to
learn the Arabic letters so that they can read the
Quran. Some 29 suras in the Quran begin with

' 4s5?D 40 amulets and talismans

letters written separately, and some suras even
take their names from these letters, like suras
Ta Ha (Q 20) and Ya Sin (Q 36). There has been
much disagreement about what the letters mean,
but some Muslims explain that their meaning is a
mystery known only to God. Muslims also have
assigned numerical value to individual letters. For
example, many Muslims living in Asia have signs
in their businesses and vehicles bearing the num-
ber 786, which is the numerical sum of the letters
in the phrase bismillah al-rahman al-rahim (In the
name of God, the most compassionate and most
merciful), known as the BASMALA. It is believed to
bring good fortune and divert the evil eye. Shii
and Sufi Muslims have a long tradition of inter-
preting the secret meanings of Arabic letters. This
can be seen in the interpretation of the the three
letters alif-lam-mim that begin the second chapter
of the Quran. Sufis believed the alif represented
Allah, that the mini represented Muhammad, and
that the 1 am represented Gabriel, the angel who
acted as the emissary between God and Muham-
mad in delivering the Quran. In some contexts,
the calculation of the numerical values of letters
has been used in numerology to foretell the future
and write magic spells. This was known as jafr.

Sec also Arabic language and literature; cal-
ligraphy; Persian language and literature; Turk-
ish LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Further reading: Kristin Brustad, Mahmoud al-Batal,
and Abbas Tonsi, Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters
and Sounds (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University
Press, 2001); Peter Daniels and W. Bright, cds., The
Worlds Writing Systems (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996); Gerhard Endress. An Introduction to Islam
(New York: Columbia University Press. 1988); Annema-
rie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975).

amulets and talismans

An amulet is a material object believed to pro-
tect a person or possession against evil forces.

A talisman is an object believed to provide good
fortune or have some benefit for a person or
possession, though it can also have a protective
function as well. The two terms are often used
interchangeably. Amulets and talismans are often
small enough to be worn on the body, but they can
also be placed in a persons home, workplace, or
vehicle. Their use is attested in the religions of the
ancient world, in tribal societies, and among the
followers of the major religious traditions, includ-
ing the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam. In the comparative study of religions,
scholars have classified the use of amulets and
talismans as a form of magic — a way of looking
at the world based on a belief that a person can
manipulate natural and supernatural forces for
good or bad purposes.

Though some Muslim scholars and reformers
have criticized the use of amulets and talismans,
making and wearing them is a widespread prac-
tice in traditional and modern Islamicate societ-
ies. They arc known by various Arabic terms, the
most common being hijab, hirz, tawiz , tamima ,
and tilsam. They can be simple objects, such as
a bead, stone, piece of jewelry, relic from a holy
place, or a drawing of an unusual animal or
supernatural being. They often consist of pieces
of paper with the names of God, angels, saints,
and JINNIS written on them, or select passages
from the Quran, such as the last two chapters (Q
113 and 114), which arc called the “protection-
seeking ones,” and the Throne Verse (Q 2:256).
More elaborate amulets and talismans combine
these elements with drawings of squares contain-
ing magic numbers, astrological symbols, and
letters. Such magical objects arc placed in a cloth
bag, leather pouch, or case made of gold or silver
and worn on the body. Small copies of the entire
Quran are also commonly used as amulets and
talismans.

People believe that amulets and talismans can
help channel the power of blessing ( BARAKA ) to
protect a child or valuable possessions, obtain a
cure from a physical or mental illness, spark a

Andalusia 41

love affair, facilitate conception and childbirth,
induce trees to bear fruit, combat the evil EYE,
cast out evil spirits, or bring harm to an opponent.
There are even amulets that are believed to offer
protection from bullets and troublesome govern-
ment officials. Amulets and talismans are usually
obtained from a shaykh or some other person
claiming specialized knowledge for making ones
that are effective, and they are used by Muslims
and non-Muslims.

Sec also children; women.

Further reading: Eleanor Abdclla Doumalo, Gelling
God's Ear: Women , Islam , and Healing in Saudi Arabia and
the Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000);
Joyce B. Flucckiger, “‘The Vision Was of Written Words:
Negotiating Authority as a Female Muslim Healer
in South India. " In Syllables of Sky: Studies of South
Indian Civilization, edited by David Shulman, 240-282
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Edward W.
Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Mod-
ern Egyptians (New York: Dover Publications, 1973).

Andalusia

Andalusia ( al-Andalus ) is the name given to
regions of Spain and Portugal under Muslim rule
between 711 and 1492. It also evokes romantic
memories of a “golden age" in that land when
culture, learning, and the arts flourished and
Muslim, Christian, and Jew lived together in har-
mony. The word Andalusia is thought to originally
come from the name of a Germanic tribe, the
Vandals, who had occupied the Iberian Peninsula
and North Africa in the fifth and sixth centuries,
before the Muslim conquests. At its greatest
extent, Andalusia reached from the Mediterra-
nean shores of southern Spain northward almost
to the Pyrenees Mountains. Its northern borders,
however, were never secure, as European Chris-
tian armies drove southward in what is called the
Reconquista, or the “reconquest," of Spain. This
started in the 11th century and ended with the
fall of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold, to

La Giralda, the minaret for the 12th-century Almohad
mosque of Seville, converted into a bell tower for the
city’s cathedral in the 16th century (Federico R. Campo)

the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the
same year Columbus landed in the New World.

Muslim armies first crossed from North Africa
into Andalusia by way of the Strait of Gibraltar
in 711. They soon established themselves in the
peninsulas major cities: Malaga, Cordoba, Toledo,
Barcelona, and Zaragosa. The new postconquest
society that subsequently arose was dominated
by an Arab Muslim elite and Berber allies from
North Africa who had only recently converted
to Islam. The Muslims of Andalusia came to
be called the Moors by Europeans, but that is
not what they called themselves. Most remained
loyal to their tribal, family, and regional identi-
ties, which contributed to the factionalism that
characterized much of the political history of

42 angel

Andalusia. The indigenous subject populations
consisted of Christians (mostly Roman Catho-
lic) and Jews known as the Sephardim (Spanish
Jewry). Non-Muslims were treated as dhimmis
(protected subjects) under the sharia, despite
sporadic persecution at the hands of some zeal-
ous Muslim rulers. The interrelationship between
Muslim and non-Muslim in Andalusia produced a
unique mix of cultural identities: Arab and Berber
immigrants, local converts to Islam ( muwallads ),
Christian admirers of Arab culture (Mozarabs),
Arabized Jews, Mudejars (Muslims living under
Christian rule), Conversos (J cws forcibly bap-
tized as Christians during the Reconquista), and
Moriscos (Muslims forcibly baptized as Chris-
tians after 1492). These groups spoke a mixture
of languages — Arabic, Berber, and Latin-based
Romance dialects.

Historians have called the golden age of har-
monious coexistence shared by Andalusian Mus-
lims and non-Muslims the convivencia. It began
with the Umayyad Caliphate, which was trans-
planted from Damascus to Cordova in 756. The
Umayyads ruled Andalusia until 1009, when their
caliphate disintegrated and subsequent Muslim
leaders turned against each other, while simulta-
neously they tried to hold off invading Christian
armies from the north. The ideal of the convivencia
nevertheless persisted, as exemplified in Anda-
lusian (Moorish) architecture, poetry, music,
and philosophy. Among the stellar individuals
contributing to this unique mix of cultures were
religious thinkers and philosophers such as Ibn
Hazm (d. 1064), Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), and Moses
Maimonides (d. 1204, Jewish author of Guide for
the Perplexed ); poets such as Ibn Zaydun (d. 1070)
and Judah Halevi (d. 1174, Jewish philosopher-
poet); and mystics such as Ibn Arabi (d. 1240)
and Moses de Leon (d. 1305), author of the Zohar,
a Jewish mystical text. Some of the great philo-
sophical and literary works of these men eventu-
ally were translated into European languages and
helped enhance intellectual life in the high Middle
Ages and Renaissance. The cultural heritage of

the golden age is also reflected in cuisine, as new
foods and flavors introduced by the Arabs from
the east changed the eating habits of Andalusian
peoples. Rice dishes, citrus fruits, and aromatic
spices found their way into Andalusian palaces
and homes and later enriched the eating traditions
of Europe, just as Andalusian learning and the arts
enriched the cultural life of Islamicate lands and
the west.

See also agriculture; Almohad dynasty;
Almorvid dynasty; Berber; Christianity and Islam;
Europe; Judaism and Islam; Sephardic Jews.

Further reading: Salma Khadra Jayyusi. cd., The Legacy
of Muslim Spain. 2 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994); Maria
Rosa Mcnocal. The Ornament of the World: How Mus-
lims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance
in Medieval Spain (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 2002);
W. Montgomery Watt and Pierre Cachia, A History of
Muslim Spain (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh
Press, 1965).

angel

An angel (from the Greek word for "messenger')
is a supernatural being that participates in the
relations between God and human beings. Belief
in angels usually occurs in monotheistic religions
such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, where
there is a belief in only one god and there exists a
clear separation between this god and the created
world. Islamic belief in angels first appears early in
the seventh century in the Quran, and it is based
on related beliefs held previously by Zoroastrians,
Jews, and Christians in the Middle East. Indeed,
according to the Quran and early Muslim theolo-
gians, belief in angels is one of the requirements of
FAITH. Islamic understandings about angels have
developed through the centuries and continue to
be part of the spiritual outlook of many Muslims
today, although skeptics deny their existence.

According Islamic tradition, angels submit
to God's commands and serve as his messengers
and helpers. In heaven, they sing his praise,

animals 43

guard his throne, and visit the celestial Kaaba, as
Muslims visit the earthly one during the pilgrim-
age to Mecca. They will also greet people when
they enter paradise. According to the Quran,
angels witnessed the creation of Adam, the first
human. All but Iblis (Satan) bowed down to
Adam in respect; God punished Iblis by cursing
and expelling him from heaven. Sometimes, Iblis
is regarded as one of the JINN, a separate class of
supernatural beings, but he is also seen as a fallen
angel whose role is to test peoples faithfulness to
God’s commands. Some angels have special func-
tions. For example, Gabriel is widely regarded as
the angel of revelation, Izrail is the angel of death,
Malik is the guardian of hell, and Israfil is the
one who will blow the trumpet on JUDGMENT Day.
Other angels are responsible for recording peoples
good and bad deeds, while the angels Mlunkar
and Nakir arc assigned to conduct interrogations
of the dead in their tombs, thus preparing them
for their future rewards or punishments in heaven
or hell.

Angels arc said to be awesome beings made of
dazzling light and to have wings, unlike humans,
who are made of clay, and the jinn, who are made
of fire. But according to some accounts, angels
may also appear in human form, as beautiful men
and women. Islamic tradition holds that Muham-
mad encountered Gabriel many times in his adult
life: Gabriel transmitted the Quran to him, and
he served as his escort through the heavens dur-
ing the Night Journey and Ascent. According to
some versions of this story, Muhammad also led
the angels in prayer at the Aqsa Mosque in Jeru-
salem. Shia Muslims share many of these beliefs
with the Sunnis, but they also claim that their
Imams have special knowledge that angels have
given to them and no one else and that the angels
protect them from harm. In Sufism and Islamic
philosophy, angels were associated with the stars
and planets and ranked according to their place in
the seven spheres of heaven. Some mystics even
thought that humans could perfect their souls
enough to become angels themselves.

Further reading: Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes in the
Quran (Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca lslamica,
1980); Jane Smith and Yvonne Haddad. The Islamic
Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1981); Alford T. Welch,
"Allah and Other Supernatural Beings: The Emergence
of the Quranic Doctrine of Tawhid." Journal of the Amer-
ican Academy of Religion 47 (1979): 733-758.

animals

Animals hold a significant place in the religious
beliefs, rituals, arts, and folklore of Muslims.
They are discussed in the Quran and hadith,
mentioned in Islamic legal texts, and depicted in
illustrated manuscripts and decorative arts, and
stories of them are popular in Islamic religious
literature and folklore. Islamic tradition gives
humans dominion over animals — people obtain
benefits from them such as food and transpor-
tation, but people arc also responsible for their
well-being. In the Quran, where six chapters are
named after animals, the most frequently men-
tioned species arc domesticated ones that live
in herds, such as sheep, goats, camels, HORSES,
and cattle. Wild animals, such as birds, snakes,
fish, and insects, are also mentioned, but not in
great detail. All creatures are believed to have
been created by God for the benefit of humans,
and they serve as signs of Gods power. The most
famous stories in the Quran that involve animals
include the raven that showed Cain how to bury
his murdered brother (Q 5:31), Noah's ark (Q
23:27), the hoopoe bird that served as a mes-
senger between King Solomon and the queen
of Sheba (Q 27:20-28); the staff of Moses that
turned into a serpent (Q 7:107; 26:32), the fish
or whale that swallowed Jonah (Q 37:139-145),
the birds JESUS created from clay (Q 3:49), the
Dog that guarded the seven sleepers in the
cave (Q 18:18, 22), and the flock of birds sent
by God to destroy “those of the elephant" who
were about to attack Mecca (Q 105). The Quran
also contains stories about people whom God

44 animals

transformed into pigs and apes because of their
wrongful deeds (Q 2:65; 5:60). Quran com-
mentaries and literature about the lives of the
prophets added more detail to these stories and
also included more animal tales, such as one
about the peacock and the serpent who helped
Satan enter the Garden of Eden to seduce Adam
and Eve. Specific commands in the Quran and
hadith concerning food and sacrifice provided
the basis for the system of rules about what kinds
of animals should be eaten and how they should
be slaughtered (see dietary laws). Thus, when an
animal is to be sacrificed or slaughtered for food,
the act must be done in accordance with detailed
rules to make sure that it is permissible to eat the
animal and to minimize its pain and suffering. In
general, Islamic law does not condone cruelty to
animals or blood sports such as cockfighting and
bullfighting. Such rules and prohibitions furnish
the basis for modern discussions of animal rights
in Islam, even though acts of cruelty toward ani-
mals do indeed occur in Muslim societies. There
is also a belief based on the sayings of Muham-
mad that people will be held accountable in the
AFTERLIFE for the way they treated animals during
their worldly existence.

Animals arc popular subjects in the literary
traditions and folklore of Muslim peoples. Prc-
Islamic Arabic poetry is especially rich in refer-
ences to camels, horses, ostriches, and lions, all
animals connected to life in the Arabian Desert.
One of the enduring classics of medieval lit-
erature is Kalita wa Dinina, a collection of fables
that was brought to Persia from India and was
translated into Arabic by Ibn Muqaffa in the
eighth century. This book drew upon animal lore
to provide moral lessons and practical advice to
rulers. Arabic stories such as the Brethren of
Purity's “Dispute between Animals and Man"
(10th century) and lbn Tufayls Hayy ibn Yaqzan
(12th century) underscore the special responsi-
bility humans have in caring for animals. Indeed,
according to tales about Muslim saints, showing
kindness toward animals was characteristic of

saintly virtue. One of the masterpieces of medi-
eval Persian mystical literature is Farid al-Din
Attars Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-tayr, 12th
century), an allegorical poem about a flock of dif-
ferent kinds of birds who set out to find their true
king, only to discover that their journey is really
one of self-discovery. The birds in this poem
represent Sufi disciples in quest of God. Middle
Eastern lore also has stories about mythological
animals, such as the BURAQ (Muhammad's winged
riding animal), the Simurgh (the phoenix), and
the Rukhkh (a giant bird mentioned in the legend
of Sinbad).

Although conservative ulama prohibited the
portrayal of humans and animals, both were
depicted in illustrated book manuscripts and
the decorative arts. Among the most popular
books containing illustrations of both domestic
and wild animals in the Middle Ages were al-
Hariri's Maqamat , Ibn Muqaffa’s Kalila wci Dinina ,
and the Shahnama (the Persian epic of kings).
Manuscripts commissioned by the rulers of the
Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires (ca. 16th
century to 19th century) often contained illustra-
tions that showed animal and human subjects in
exquisite detail. Animals were also portrayed in
ceramics, metalwork, carpets, and woodwork.
They never appeared, however, in Quran manu-
scripts and mosque decorations because of the
fear that this would violate the Islamic ban on
idolatry.

See also Arabian Nights; cat.

Further reading: Esin Atil, Kalila wa Dinina: Fables from
a Fourteenth-Century Arabic Manuscript (Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981); Farid ud-
Din Altar, The Conference of the Birds, trans. Afkham
Darbandi and Dick Davis (New York: Penguin, 1984);
Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, Islamic Arts (London:
Phaidon Press, 1997); Denys Johnson-Davis, trans., The
Island of the Animals (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1994); Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of
God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1994); Al-Hafiz B.

anthropomorphism 45

A. Masri, Islamic Concern for Animals (Petersfield. U.K.:
Athene Trust, 1987).

Ansar (Arabic: helpers)

The Ansar were early converts to Islam from Medina
who joined in an alliance with Muhammad and the
Emigrants from Mecca in 622. They were members
of the Arab Khazraj and Aws tribes, the two domi-
nant tribes in Medina at that time, and they served
as hosts for the Emigrants. The Ansar participated
in the battles against Muhammad’s enemies and in
the early wars of conquest after his death in 632.
Together with other groups that participated in the
conquest, they settled in the new garrison towns of
Kufa in Iraq and Fustat (Cairo) in Egypt. They also
ranked highly on the registries for receiving income
from newly conquered territories in the Middle
East. As rivals to the Quraysh tribe of Mecca, they
supported the candidacy of Ali Ibn abi Talib (d.
661) for the caliphate, and in the eighth century,
they allied with the Abbasids in their revolt against
the Umayyad Caliphate. As a tribe, they eventu-
ally blended in with other members of the Muslim
community, but the name continues to be used for
mosques and contemporary Muslim organizations.

In Sudan, the Ansar is a significant Islamic
movement named after the helpers of the Suda-
nese MAHDI, Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abd Allah
(d. 1883), who ruled the country for a short time
in the 1880s. The Mahdis heirs reorganized the
group into a puritanical religious movement in
the early 20th century, and it has played a major
role in modern Sudanese politics to the present
day. The Ansar name was also used independently
by radical Islamist guerrilla organizations in Iraq,
Pakistan, and Lebanon in the 1990s and 2000s.

See also UMMA.

Further reading: Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the
Age oj the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the
Sixth to the Eleventh Century (London: Longman, 1986);
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1956).

anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is a topic in classical Islamic
theology. It is concerned with the question as to
whether God resembles human beings in his fea-
tures (attributes), actions, and emotions. Is God
completely unlike his creation and distant from
it, or not? The issue was raised in debates about
statements in the Quran and hadith as well as in
efforts made by early Muslims to distinguish their
religious beliefs from non-Islamic ones, especially
those of the ancient Near Eastern cultures and the
Greeks, who commonly portrayed their gods and
goddesses in human form, and Christians, who
held that Jesus was God in the flesh. Political con-
flicts within the Muslim community in the eighth
century may also have intensified the debate.

Muslims who were called anthropomor-
phists (people who believed that God resembled
humans) looked to passages in the Quran that say,
for example, "Grace is in God's hand" (Q 3:73)
and “His throne encompasses the heavens and
earth" (Q 2:255). They argued that God therefore
must have a real hand and that he had a body that
could be seated on a throne. The hadith contain
even stronger anthropomorphisms, such as the
one based on the Bible, which says that God cre-
ated Adam “in his image." Their opponents, how-
ever, argued that such statements could not be
taken literally, but that they were figures of speech
intended to help ordinary humans grasp abstract
theological concepts. To support their views,
the opponents of anthropomorphism quoted the
Quran verse that says of God “nothing is like him”
(Q 42:11), implying that God lacks resemblance
to his creation, including humans.

Anthropomorphic understandings of God
were based partly on popular religious piety in
the eighth and ninth centuries, and they were
articulated by Sunni scholars who held to the lit-
eral reading of the Quran and hadith, as well as by
followers of extremist Shii doctrines. The extreme
rationalist view of God that denied any real
resemblance between God and his creation was
articulated by the Mutazili School and supported

46 Antichrist

by the Abbasid caliphs. The middle position in
this debate was defined by al-Ashari (873-935)
and his followers, who argued that the anthropo-
morphic descriptions of God based on the Quran
and hadith must be accepted as real, but that
God remains uniquely different from his creation
"without lour) knowing how." This is the doc-
trine that has prevailed in the Sunni community
until the present day. Nevertheless, anthropomor-
phic understandings of God continue to surface
in popular Muslim beliefs and certain strands of
Sufism and speculative thought.

Sec also Abbasid Caliphate; Allah; Ashari
School; ghulat; Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad; Perfect
Man.

Further reading: Binyamin Abrahamov, Anthropomor-
phism and the Interpretation of the Quran in the Theol-
ogy of al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim (Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1996);
W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic
Thought (Oxford: One World Press, 1998).

Antichrist (Arabic: al-dajjal, or al-masih
al-dajjal)

The Antichrist is a well-known figure who Mus-
lims expect to arrive at the End of Times. Ideas
about the dajjal, which means "deceiver," do not
come directly from the Quran, although other
apocalyptic elements, such as Judgment Day, Gog
and Magog (armies lead by the Antichrist), and the
trials and tribulations of the End Times are pres-
ent. Rather, the term dajjal — the Islamic equiva-
lent of the Christian Antichrist — occurs in the
hadith, the second major source of authoritative
knowledge in Islam. In many hadith collections,
including the authoritative Sunni collections by
al-Bukhari and Muslim, the dajjal is variously
described as being red-complexioned, one-eyed
(or blind in one eye), and short (or sometimes
enormously large), with bowed legs and curly
hair. The name Unbeliever will be written on his
forehead. It is said that he will perform miracles,
attracting many whose faith is weak. However,

true, believing Muslims will not succumb. He will
reign for 40 years (or 40 days) before he succeeds
in destroying Muslims. Ultimately, the Antichrist
will be slain by Jesus, who also plays an important
role in Islamic eschatology. The Shia, it should be
noted, believe that Jesus and the Mahdi together
will slay him, after which the End Times and
Judgment Day will come.

The different and sometimes contradictory
ways in which the Antichrist is described in
Islamic eschatology is a result of early inter-
actions among Muslims and Christians in the
Middle East. Muslim scholars are divided on the
authenticity of these traditions, which appear to
go against the Quranic teaching that Judgment
Day will arrive suddenly. Nonetheless, belief in
the emergence of the Antichrist is a central aspect
of belief for Muslims. There is an active apocalyp-
tic tradition today in which various “Antichrists”
are described; some commentators even see the
Antichrist embodied in the modern temptations
and foreign domination to which Muslims have
been subjected.

See also Christianity and Islam; death; Shiism.

John Iskander

Further reading: Bernard McGinn, Anti-Christ: Two
Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Zcki
Saritoprak, "The Legend of al-Dajjal (Antichrist): The
Personification of Evil in the Islamic Tradition." Muslim
World 93 (2003): 291-308.

anti-Semitism

A term coined in the 19th century, anti-Semitism
is used to describe hateful attitudes and hostile
actions directed at Jews. It is not to be confused
with the persecution of Jews by Christians and
others prior to that time, which is better under-
stood as anti-Judaism — the persecution of Jews
because of their religious beliefs and practices. The
term Semite originated in modern history as part

anti-Semitism 47

of a European scholarly effort to rationally catego-
rize the languages and races of the world. It was
derived from the name of Shem, a son of Noah,
considered to be one of the ancient ancestors of
the Hebrews in the Bible. It acquired negative
meaning when white European racists, especially
in Germany, asserted that their Indo-European, or
Aryan, cultural and biological heritage was supe-
rior to that of other races, including that of the
“Semites.” Both Jews and Arabs were classified as
Semitic peoples, but during the late 19th century
and early 20th century the term Semite came to
be used in a deliberate propaganda campaign to
dehumanize the Jews of Europe. This campaign
culminated in the Holocaust of 1933-45, which
involved the mass extermination of millions of
Jews and members of other minority groups in
concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and
its allies in Europe.

Anti-Semitism was imported to Muslim lands
from Europe in the 20th century. Prior to that
time, Jews in these lands held DHlMMt status, a
kind of second-class citizenship, and, except for
sporadic outbreaks of violence, they were bet-
ter integrated into Islamicate societies than into
Christian European ones. Indigenous elites in
Muslim countries became influenced by Euro-
pean intellectual trends and political ideologies
of all kinds — including ant-Semitism — during
the decades they were under direct or indirect
colonial rule. With the breakup of the colonial
empires after World War II, the emergence of new
Arab nation-states, and the creation of Israel,
anti-Semitic rhetoric found widespread use in the
speeches of Arab leaders and the Middle Eastern
media. There were also violent attacks on eastern
Jews living in Iraq, Libya, Morocco, and Aden
(Yemen). These attacks, and growing Arab nation-
alist rhetoric, together with the desire of Jews to
live in their own homeland, caused Jews in many
Arab lands to immigrate to Israel.

At first, anti-Semitic hostility in the Middle
East was expressed mainly by secular states and
political parties. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

however, it was also promoted by radical Islamic
movements, beginning with the Muslim Brother-
hood in Egypt and other Arab countries. Publica-
tions of this organization repeated dehumanizing
caricatures and stereotypes of Jews that had origi-
nated in Europe. The demonization of Jews and
of Israel intensified in the wake of the Iranian
Revolution of 1978-1979, the Israeli invasion
of Lebanon (1982), escalation of hostilities in the
Arab-Israeli conflicts during the late 1980s and
1990s, and the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq
in 2003. Arabic and Persian translations of The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion , a fraudulent Russian
document alleging a Jewish plot to dominate the
world, circulated widely in the Middle East, and it
continues to be cited in anti-Israeli speeches and
even television dramas. Saudi schoolbooks refer to
it as if its slanderous allegations were true. Other
examples of anti-Semitic ideology in the rcligiopo-
litical rhetoric of the Middle East include iterations
of a medieval Christian libel against the Jews and
denial of the Holocaust. Louis Farrakhan, the
African-American leader of the Nation of Islam,
has also been condemned for making anti-Semitic
remarks. In some Jewish circles, anyone who
criticizes the policies and actions of the Israeli
government, especially with regard to the question
of Palestine, is labeled an anti-Semite. Extremist
rhetoric appears to be increasing in the first decade
of the 21st century among different factions and
movements, a development that inhibits the peace-
ful resolution of political conflicts in the Middle
East. It also undermines efforts to achieve better
interfaith understanding.

See also colonialism; Judaism and Islam.

Further reading: Jane S. Gerber, “Anti-Semitism and the
Muslim World." In History and Hate: The Dimensions of
Anti-Semitism, edited by David Berger, 73—94 (Philadel-
phia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986); Bernard Lewis,
The Jews of Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University,
1984); Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clare, eds.,
The Politics of Anti-Semitism (Oakland, Calif.: AK Press,
2003).

48 apostasy

Apostasy, which comes from the Greek word for
"defection" or "revolt,” is the partial or complete
abandonment or rejection of the beliefs and prac-
tices of a religion by a person who is a follower
of that religion. The charge of apostasy is often
used by religious authorities to condemn and
punish skeptics, dissidents, and minorities in
their communities. This is especially so in reli-
gions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
where membership in the religious community
involves publicly making or consenting to formal
statements of belief. Failure to do so may provide
grounds for accusations of apostasy and result in
severe penalties.

In Islam, apostasy is thought of in two ways:
abandoning Islam ( irtidad ) and deviation in reli-
gious belief (ilhad). In either case, apostasy is
regarded as a kind of disbelief, together with HER-
ESY and blasphemy (verbally insulting a religion).
The Quran declares that apostasy will result in
punishment in the afterlife but takes a relatively
lenient view toward apostasy in this life (Q 9:74;
2:109). This picture changed significantly during
the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates (seventh
century to ninth century), when Muslim jurists
invoked HADITH that supported the imposition
of the death penalty for apostasy, except in cases
of coercion. These hadith may well have been
a product of the so-called wars of apostasy (the
Ridda Wars) that shook the early Muslim commu-
nity after the death of Muhammad in 632. Accord-
ing to the sharia, apostasy is identified with a long
list of actions such as conversion to another reli-
gion, denying the existence of God, rejecting the
prophets, mocking God or the prophets, idol wor-
ship, rejecting the sharia, or permitting behavior
that is forbidden by the sharia, such as adultery.
Muslims disagree over when such actions should
be punished, but in the history of Islam, a variety
of individuals and groups have been accused of
apostasy — atheists, materialists, Sufis, and mem-
bers of Shii sects. The Sufi mystics Mansur al-
Hallaj (d. 922) and Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi

(d. 1191) were among those in the Middle Ages
accused of apostasy and executed, as well many
followers of Ismaili Shiism. In addition to death,
adult male apostates may also be punished by
forced separation from their spouses and denial
of property and inheritance rights, depending on
the legal school. Punishment of female apostates
involves not death, but confinement. Punishments
may be cancelled if the accused person repents his
or her apostasy in public.

In the modern period, conservative Muslim
authorities and religious radicals have accused
Muslim modernists, intellectuals, and writers
of this "crime.” Among the most famous to be
charged with apostasy or the related crime of
blasphemy are the Anglo-Indian writer Salman
Rushdie (b. 1947), the Egyptian intellectual Nasr
Hamid Abu Zayd (b. 1943), and the Bangladeshi
writer and human rights advocate Taslima Nasrin
(b. 1962). In some Muslim countries, apostasy
charges have also been leveled against non-Mus-
lims, for example the Bahais in Iran and Chris-
tians in Pakistan. International human RIGHTS
advocates, Muslims and non-Muslims, have con-
demned Islamic apostasy laws in the name of
justice and "freedom of thought, conscience, and
religion” (Article 18, Universal Declaration of
Human Rights).

See also Bahai Faith; Christianity and Islam;
Judaism and Islam; heresy; kafir.

Further reading: Burhan al-Din AI-Marghinani, The
Hedaya: Commentary on the Islamic Laws. Translated
by Charles Hamilton (New Delhi: Kilab Bhavan, 1994;
Rudolph Peters and Gert J. J. Dc Vries, “Apostasy in
Islam. Die Welt des I slams 17 (1976-77): 1-25; Abdullah
Saecd and Hassan Saecd, Freedom of Religion , Apostasy
and Islam (Burlington. Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2004).

Aqsa Mosque (Arabic: al-Masjid al-acjsa)

Regarded by most Muslims as the third most
sacred mosque after those of Mecca and Medina,
the Aqsa Mosque is situated on the eastern edge of

Arab 49

the Old City in Jerusalem. It is part of a complex
of buildings and monuments known as the Noble
Sanctuary, which stands atop the remains of the
Second Temple of Israel, which was destroyed
by the Roman army in 70 c.E. Jews and Chris-
tians therefore commonly know this area as the
Temple Mount. The name of the mosque itself
was obtained from a passage in the Quran that
says, “Glory be to him who transported his ser-
vant by night from the sacred mosque [in Mecca)
to the most distant (aqsa) mosque, the precincts
of which we have blessed" (Q 17:1). Though
there was some dispute over where the mosque
mentioned in the Quran was actually located, the
verse was eventually linked by Islamic tradition
to the Night Journey and Ascent of Muhammad,
when he was believed to have been miraculously
transported one night from Mecca to Jerusalem,
up to heaven, then back down to Mecca. The Aqsa
Mosque, therefore, was said to be where Muham-
mad led the angels and former prophets in prayer
before his heavenly ascent to meet with God.

Despite this legendary account, the mosque
was first constructed after Muhammad’s death by
the Umayyad caliphs Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705)
and his son, al-Walid (r. 705-715). It was designed
as a rectangular congregational mosque for Friday
prayers, with a dome and a long north-south axis
that was aligned with the Dome of the Rock, a
separate memorial structure to the north. Mosa-
ics, marble, and carved wood decorated its walls.
It had to be reconstructed and expanded several
times over the centuries because of earthquakes,
and it now can hold up to 400,000 worshippers.
When the crusaders seized Jerusalem in 1096,
the Aqsa Mosque was converted into a royal pal-
ace and later a barracks for the Knights Templar.
Muslims believed that these Christians had defiled
the mosque; when Saladin (d. 1193) recaptured
the city in 1187, he purified the building so it
could once again be used as a place for congrega-
tional prayer. After Israel captured east Jerusalem
in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, administration of
the mosque remained in the hands of Muslim

authorities, and Palestinian Muslims were allowed
to continue using it for Friday prayers. Together
with the Dome of the Rock, the Aqsa Mosque
has since become a symbol for the Palestinian
nationalist movement and liberation from Israeli
occupation. Indeed, Palestinians call the second
intifada (uprising) in the West Bank and Gaza that
started in 2000 the al-Aqsa Intifada.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; architecture;
Christianity and Islam; Palestine.

Further reading: Oleg Grabar, The Shape oj the Holy:
Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1996); Robert W. Hamilton, The Structural
History of the Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1949).

Arab

Originally an ethnic designation for the people
of Arabia, Arab is now commonly used to refer
to people who speak Arabic, claim ancestry in
North Africa or the Middle East, or consider
themselves nationals in one of the recently created
Arab nation-states. In its original meaning, Arab
applied to several Arabic speaking tribes from the
Arabian Peninsula (the area including contem-
porary Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab
Emirates, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Kuwait,
Jordan, and parts of Syria and Iraq). Classically
imagined as CAMEL-breeding nomads, many Arabs
have always lived in cities and have been noted
for their loyalty to family and hospitality and to a
rich poetic tradition. Because Muhammad (d. 632)
was a member of the Arab tribe called Quraysh
and he delivered the Quran in Arabic, the Arabic
language became very important to the practice
and understanding of Islam. Arabs played a cru-
cial role in helping expand the boundaries of
Islam beyond the Arabian Peninsula, and today
they remain guardians of the most holy Muslim
city of Mecca. This has led to some confusion
between the terms Arab and Muslim: Arab is an
ethnic category, while Muslim refers to religion.

'Cas^

50 arabesque

Arabs are not necessarily Muslim, and indeed
there are many Christian Arabs. Moreover, the
majority of Muslims (about 80 percent) do not
consider themselves to be Arab, and some people
who do consider themselves to be Arab — espe-
cially the children of migrants — do not neces-
sarily speak Arabic. Like all ethnic categories,
the definition of Arab is somewhat flexible and
depends on context.

Sec also Arabic language and literature; Arab
League.

David Crawford

Further reading: Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab
Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1991); Maxime Rodinson, The Arabs (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1981).

arabesque

Arabesque is a term meaning a Yarabe , or in the
Arab mode, a European designation for ornamen-
tal passages in MUSIC, dance, poetry, and visual
art. First used by 17th-century European travel-
ers as an adjective, it began to function as a noun
by the later 19th century, when it entered debates

Carved stucco arabesque designs decorate arches in the Court of the Lions in the Alhambra, Granada, Spain
( 1 3th/ 1 4th century). (Federico R. Campo)

Arabian Nights 51

on the nature of ornament. The arabesque was
understood to represent a paradigmatic way
of life — simple and instinctual, close to nature
yet profoundly spiritual, unchanging, and stoic.
These characteristics were visually apparent in
applied decoration of floral scrolls, interlaced
and/or overlapping geometric motifs, or styl-
ized writing, sometimes in combination. To
European eyes, the two-dimensionality, abstrac-
tion, and nonfigural nature of these decorative
designs made them perfect expressions of Arab-
Semitic abhorrence of representations of living
beings (even though some of them included
such representations). Their being categorized as
ornament underscored their additive and unnec-
essary nature and their lack of meaning, while
their infinite repetition with minute variations
expressed a horror of emptiness. By 1900, when
the first handbooks on Islamic art were written,
the arabesque was cited as the major character-
istic of an art whose goal was to express infinite
(ethnic or created) variety within unity (of Islam
and God). Some Muslim scholars now uphold
this concept as an expression of tawhid (unity)
partly as a way of affirming Islamic cultural and
political identity.

Recent research demonstrates that the ara-
besque has complex histories and meanings. On a
theoretical level, floral, geometric, or calligraphic
arabesques may have acted as carriers of pleasure,
mediators between (human) nature and culture.
Historically, they first appeared in late 10th-cen-
tury Baghdad, when they were also introduced
into the three-dimensional muqarnas decoration
used for the portals and domes of shrines. The
Persian term girih (knot) expresses their math-
ematical and geometrical complexity, and their
specific context indicates that they belonged
to inter-Islamic philosophical, theological, and
political discourses on the nature of God and
the universe. The visual appeal of the girih mode
eventually led to its adoption in a variety of later
contexts, even when its original purpose was no
longer operative.

See also architecture; calligraphy; Ibn al-Baw-
wab, Abu al-Hasan ali; mathematics; theology.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: Terry Allen. Five Essays on Islamic
Art (Sebastopol. Calif.: Solipsist Press. 1988); Oleg
Grabar. The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press. 1992); Ernst Kuhnel, Die
Arabesque (Wiesbaden. 1949); Richard Ettinghausen,
The Arabesque: Meaning and Transformation of an Orna-
ment (Graz, Austria: Verlag fur Sammler, 1976); Giilru
Necipoglu, The Topkapi Scroll — Geometry and Ornament
in Islamic Architecture (Santa Monica, Calif.: The Getty
Center, 1995); Yasser Tabbaa, The Transformation of
Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival (Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 2001).

Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights is one of the most famous
works of Arabic literature. It consists of several
hundred adventure stories, fairy talcs, love stories,
and animal fables that storytellers recounted for
centuries to audiences living in the Middle East
and Asia. Between the 14th and 18th centuries,
these stories were written down in Arabic and
collected in the book Thousand and One Nights
(or AIJ layla wa-layla). It first became known
to English readers as Arabian Nights in the 18th
century. The tales are nested within the overall
frame of a story about the fictional king Shahrayar
of India who murdered his first wife because she
betrayed him and then, continuing his revenge,
had each new virgin bride he took thereafter
killed. To end the king's killing spree, Shahrazad,
the well-educated daughter of the king's minister,
offered to marry him, and she was then able to
save her own life and bring his killing spree to
a halt by entertaining him with a different tale
night after night, year after year. With its fanciful
and often risque stories, the Arabian Nights is not
an example of Islamic religious literature, but it
does contain elements — such as references to the

52 Arabian religions, pre-lslamic

Quran, the sharia, and Sufi dervishes — that draw
upon Islamic tradition.

The stories are anonymous, and modern
scholars agree that they come from different
sources, not all of which are “Arabian." Though
the stories are written in Arabic and a number
of them refer to Baghdad and Cairo, many of
them show strong Indian and Persian influences.
Scholars also agree that the Arabian Nights cir-
culated in several versions of different lengths
during much of its history. The version that first
captured the attention of Western readers was
based on Arabic manuscripts from Syria trans-
lated by a French traveler-scholar, Antoine Gal-
land (1646-1715), in collaboration with an Arab
Christian named Hanna Diab. Indeed, some of
the most beloved stories we now associate with
the Arabian Nights, such as those about Sinbad,
Aladdin, and Ali Baba, circulated as separate sto-
ries and were not part of the original 14th-cen-
tury collection. They were added to the Arabian
Nights only as a result of Galland and Hanna's
collaboration early in the 18th century. Printed
translations and adaptations of the Arabian
Nights quickly became best sellers in Europe
and continue to fascinate readers young and
old around the world today. Moreover, Arabian
Nights has inspired modern composers, poets,
playwrights, and filmmakers both in the West
and the Middle East. However, it has also con-
tributed to the formation of exotic stereotypes
about Arabs and Muslims that inhibit cross-
cultural communication and understanding, as
exemplified in the controversy surrounding the
animated Disney feature Aladdin (1992).

See also Arabic language and literature;
folklore; Orientalism.

Further reading: Richard F. Burton, trans.. The Ara-
bian Nights . Edited by Jack Zipes (New York: Penguin
Books, 2001; Husain Haddawy. trans., The Arabian
Nights (New York: W.W. Norton. 1990); Robert Irwin,
The Arabian Nights: A Companion (London: Penguin
Books, 1995).

Arabian religions, pre-lslamic

Before the historical appearance of Islam in the
seventh century, there were a variety of religions
practiced by the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula
and its borderlands in southern Syria and southern
Iraq. Though the evidence is meager, it appears
that in addition to ancient native Arabian religions,
there were also three religious traditions that had
come into the region from neighboring territories:
Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. By the
middle of the eighth century, Islam had become
the dominant religion, and the institutions, prac-
tices, and beliefs of the former religions had either
been displaced or absorbed by Islamic ones.

Native Arabian religions focused partly on
temple cults located in cities and towns, includ-
ing Mecca, the site of the Kaaba, where as many
as 360 gods and goddesses may have been wor-
shipped. The temples were ceremonial centers
that housed sacred images, which were cared for
by ritual experts who conducted animal sacrifices
and transmitted other offerings on behalf of the
lay people. Some of these temples attracted pil-
grims who came from surrounding regions and
had to follow special ritual rules, not unlike those
observed during the annual HAJJ. Several of the
Arabian deities worshipped were associated with
the Sun, MOON, planets, and stars. The main dei-
ties in Mecca at the time of Islam's appearance
were Hubal (a god of divination), Allah and al-
Lat (a high god and his wife), al-Uzza (a powerful
goddess, perhaps Venus), and Manat (a goddess of
destiny and another form of Venus). Certain rocks,
trees, and springs of water were also believed to be
inhabited by spiritual beings, known as JINN. With
the exception of Allah only, the Quran attacked
worship of such deities and spirits, and such prac-
tices were later formally banned by Islamic law as
unbelief ( kufr ) and idolatry (shirk)

The Quran contains evidence of the presence
of Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian religions in
the Arabian Peninsula during Muhammad's lifetime
(5707-632). Judaism came into Arabia before the
first century C.E. but became especially evident

Arabic language and literature 53

after the destruction of the Second Temple in
Jerusalem by the Romans (70 c.E.), which caused
a flow of refugees southward. Islamic sources
indicate that there was a Jewish community led
by rabbis in Yathrib (Medina), which existed
alongside the settled Arab tribes there in the sixth
to seventh centuries. Dhu Nuwas, a Jewish king,
ruled southern Arabia for a short time in the sixth
century with the support of the Persians. Christi-
anity was familiar to the Arabs in several forms.
The Banu Ghassan tribes of Syria were allies of the
Byzantine Empire, and were members of the Syr-
ian Church. The Arab Lakhmid rulers of southern
Iraq generally held to the Nestorian sect of Chris-
tianity. There was also a strong Christian presence
in southern Arabia, centered on the city of Najran,
which was known for its monasteries, churches,
and shrines dedicated to Arab Christian martyrs.
Its leaders were allied to the rulers of Byzantium
and Ethiopia. Followers of the Zoroastrian reli-
gion, the official religion of the Sasanian Persian
Empire (224-651), could be found in southern
Iraq, along the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf,
and in Yemen. Most of these Zoroastrians were
probably Persians, but there is evidence that some
may also have been Arabs. According to early
Muslim accounts, one of the first of Muhammad's
followers was Salman al-Farisi, a Persian from Iraq
who had converted from Zoroastrianism.

See also Christianity and Islam; idolatry;
jahiliyya; Judaism and Islam.

Further reading: Hisham ibn Kalbi, The Booh of Idols,
trans. N. A. Faris (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1952); Gordon D. Newby, A History of the Jews of
Arabia: From Ancient Times to Their Eclipse under Islam
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988);
F. E. Peters, The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam
(Aldershot, U.K. and Brookfield. Vt.: Ashgate, 1999).

Arabic language and literature

Arabic is the fifth or sixth most widely spoken
language in the world today, after Mandarin

Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, and possibly
Bengali. It is the official language of 21 modern
countries; nearly 160 million Arabic speakers in
the Middle East and abroad use it as their mother
tongue. More than 1 billion Muslims around the
world regard it as their sacred language because
it is the language of the Quran, the Islamic holy
book. Many Jews and Christians living in the
Middle East also speak it. Arabic has been used
continuously as a living, written, and spoken
language for nearly 1,400 years and has served
as the medium for the creation and transmission
of a great number of works on religion, history,
philosophy, science, and mathematics.

Classified by linguists as a member of the
Semitic family of the Afro-Asiatic languages,
Arabic is related to Hebrew, Aramaic, and the
Akkadian language of ancient Mesopotamia. It
originated in the Arabian Peninsula, where it
was a poetic language used by the Bedouin and
townspeople prior to the appearance of Islam in
the seventh century. The main reason for its rise
as a world language is because it is the language
of the Quran, which declares itself to be a direct
“revelation ' from God “in plain Arabic speech”
(Q 26:192-196). In addition to being a sacred
language, the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik b.
Marwan (r. 685-705) made Arabic the administra-
tive language of the early Arab empire, leading to
its codification as a literary language with its own
formal grammar by the end of the eighth century.
Thus, as lands and peoples from Spain and North
Africa to the banks of the Indus River fell under
the control of Arab Muslim governments, Arabic
became the language of their subjects, Muslims
and non-Muslims alike. The languages formerly
spoken by the native peoples in these regions
became isolated, minority languages, such as Cop-
tic in Egypt and Aramaic in Mesopotamia (Iraq),
or they were noticeably changed by the introduc-
tion of Arabic vocabulary, such as the Persian
language. Turkish, Hindi, and Urdu also have an
extraordinary number of Arabic loanwords as a
result of the spread of Islamic religion and civili-

54 Arabic language and literature

Arabic Alphabet

Name Independent Beginning Medial Final

alif (aa)

Name Independent Beginning Medial Final

dad (d)

—

ta(t)

dha (dh)

J,

ayn

ghayn (gh)

t

%

l

fa'(f)

qaf (q) J

kaf (k)

lam (I)

mim (m)

nun (n)

-- t

#

ha (h)

d J

r -

0 J>
-2 JS>

S

f

') -i. o-

waw (ww)

j

j

ya(yy)

Arabic language and literature 55

zation. Arabic even found its way into European
languages, especially Spanish, which has as many
as 4,000 words of Arabic origin (for example,
algodon , arroz, azul, azucar, alcalde , fulano, etc.).
A number of Arabic nouns have also entered Eng-
lish, such as the words cotton , rice, sugar ; admiral ,
magazine, sherbet, and even coffee.

There are two basic types of Arabic: formal lit-
erary Arabic and everyday spoken (or colloquial)
Arabic. The first is subdivided into Classical (or
Medieval) and Modern Standard Arabic. It can
be comprehended by anyone who has learned
to read and write it, no matter what his or her
spoken Arabic dialect is, and it is used in books,
newspapers and magazines, government docu-
ments, SERMONS, and official speeches. Colloquial
Arabic is subdivided into a number of regional
dialects that can differ significantly from each
other. For example, people who speak Egyptian or
Iraqi Arabic can understand each other, but they
cannot understand the Moroccan Arabic of North
Africa. Egyptian colloquial, furthermore, is widely
understood throughout the Arab world because of
the leading role Egypt plays in the production of
movies and the broadcast programming for radio
and television. Through the centuries, literary and
colloquial Arabic have mutually influenced each
other, which is one reason for the language's on-
going vitality.

Arabic literature encompasses a vast range of
prose and poetry that deals with both religious
and worldly subjects. The body of religious lit-
erature in Arabic is massive; beginning with
the Quran itself, it includes Quran commentar-
ies, HADITH collections, religious biographies and
prophets' tales, texts on religious law, theological
treatises, Sufi writings, and religious poetry. Many
such works were composed in the Middle Ages,
but they have had a lasting impact on Arabic
writing, and they are widely available today in
print, on compact disks (CDs), and even on the
internet. Secular poetry is another major branch
of the Arabic literary tradition, especially a type
of poem called the qasida (a multi-themed ode).

considered to be the most ancient and prestigious
form of poetic expression. Classical Arabic poetry
addressed themes of love, praise, ridicule, death,
and remembrance. It also celebrated wine, hunt-
ing, nature, and famous places. Many nonreligious
prose works were composed during the Middle
Ages as well. They dealt with a variety of top-
ics that were of special interest to rulers and the
educated elite: history, geography, government,
philosophy, the sciences, differences between vari-
ous kinds of people, etiquette, proverbs, interest-
ing trivia, and entertaining stories and anecdotes.
The most famous works of prose literature are the
Arabian Nights and the animal fables of Kalila wa
Dimna , both of which contain stories that have
been transmitted from other cultures. There were
also popular oral epics about noble Arab warriors
such as Antar and Abu Zayd al-Hilali.

The Arabic literary heritage was selectively
translated into Hebrew and Latin and transmit-
ted to Europe during the Middle Ages, which
enriched intellectual and cultural life there. In
modern times. Western learning and literature
have influenced Arab writers, creating a fusion
of the old with the new. During the 20th century,
new generations of Arab authors rose to national
and international fame, none moreso than the
Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz (b. 1911),
who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988. In
recent decades, an increasing number of women
have also made contributions to the Arab literary
renaissance, including Nawal al-Sadawi (b. 1930)
and Hanan al-Shaykh (b. 1945).

See also adab ; alphabet; animals; autobiogra-
phy; biography; calligraphy; fiqh; Persian Lan-
guage and Literature; Turkish Language and
Literature.

Further reading: Roger Allen, An Introduction to Arabic
Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000); Salm K. Jayyusi, Modern Arabic Poetry: An
Anthology (New York: Columbia University Press,
1987); Kees Verstecgh, The Arabic Language, 2d ed.
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).

56 Arab-lsraeli conflicts

Arab-lsraeli conflicts

Among the most intractable conflicts to emerge
in the 20th century are those that developed
with the expansion of Zionism (a modern Jewish
movement and political ideology) and the estab-
lishment of the nation-state of Israel. Israels Arab
neighbors took offense at the displacement from
Palestine of more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs
during fighting between Zionist settlers and Arabs
in 1947-49 and came to view Israel as a menac-
ing tool of Western expansion in their region.
Israelis, meanwhile, viewed their new nation as
a necessary haven for world Jewry threatened by
anti-Semitism and saw their new Arab neighbors
as unreasonably hostile enemies continuously
plotting their destruction. The term Arab-lsraeli
conflict thus does not distinguish between the
specific problem of Palestinian displacement and
all of its consequences for the Palestinians them-
selves on the one hand, and the wars and conflicts
between Israel and its many Arab neighbors on
the other.

Tensions have rarely abated, and formal con-
flict has broken out between Israel and neighbor-
ing Arab states several times. In 1948-49, Egypt,
Transjordan (now Jordan), Lebanon, Syria, and
Iraq invaded the newly declared Israel, hoping
to eliminate the new state, but they were repelled
by the vastly better equipped and trained Israeli
military. In 1956, Israel joined Britain and France
in an invasion of Egypt after that nation national-
ized the Suez Canal. However, the Soviet Union
and the United States forced the alliance to retreat
from its invasion, humiliating Israel and bolster-
ing Egypt.

Furthermore, in 1967, after receiving faulty
intelligence reports of an imminent Israeli inva-
sion, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria allied in a mutual
defense pact, preparing for any potential invasion
by Israel with an Egyptian-led blockade of Israeli
shipping at the Strait of Tiran. Israel responded by
invading the countries, beginning on June 5 and
ending on June 11, 1967. The result was a deci-
sive defeat of the Arab armies, the occupation by

Israel of the West Bank, the Sinai, the Gaza Strip,
and the Golan Heights, and the displacement of at
least 300,000 more Palestinians and 80,000 Syrian
residents of the Golan.

Israel's occupation of such large areas of Arab
territory provoked Egypt and Syria to invade in
1 973, and the resulting October War, the cease-fire
of which was sponsored by the United States and
the Soviet Union, demonstrated the tremendous
involvement of the cold war superpowers in the
Arab-lsraeli conflict. Although peace was eventu-
ally brokered between Israel and Egypt in 1977,
resulting in a return of the Sinai, tensions did not
abate. Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and its
continued occupation of Palestinian land guar-
anteed further hostilities. From 1987 until 1993,
the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, erupted,
escalating the tensions between Israel and the mil-
lions of Arabs living under its rule as well as those
living in neighboring nations. Although an Ameri-
can-sponsored peace plan gained some ground in
the mid-1990s, the year 2000 prompted a new
intifada from a frustrated, oppressed Palestinian
population. Over the years, the conflicts have
also fanned the flames of Islamic radicalism in the
Middle East, as seen first with the rise of the Mus-
lim Brotherhood (1940s), then the Lebanese Shii
militia Hizbullah (1980s), the Palestinian militant
organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad
(1980s), and in the 1990s al-Qaida. At the dawn
of the new century, Arab-lsraeli conflicts appear
far from over. Indeed, the American-sponsored
“war on terror " that began in 2001 has further
pushed Arab-lsraeli conflicts to the forefront of
world attention.

See also Arafat, Yasir; jihad movements; Juda-
ism and Islam; Palestine Liberation Organization;
terrorism.

Nancy Stockdale

Further reading: Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, cds.,
The Israel- Arab Reader (New York: Penguin, 2001); Avi
Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New
York: Norton, 2001); Charles D. Smith. Palestine and the

Arafat 57

Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's,
1995).

Arab League (official name: League of
Arab States)

The Arab League was founded in 1945 to serve
the collective interests of Arab countries that had
achieved their independence from European colo-
nial rule. The founding members were Egypt, Iraq,
Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
An additional 15 nations have become members
since 1945: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros Islands,
Djibouti, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco,
Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Tuni-
sia, and United Arab Emirates. The Arab League,
which has its permanent headquarters in Cairo,
Egypt, is a secular organization that is guided
by the ideal of Arab unity and cooperation. It
is a forum where Arab states address common
issues relating to politics, law, security, transpor-
tation, communication, economic development,
and social and cultural affairs. The league's char-
ter requires a secretary general as its chief officer,
but the supreme authority for the organization
is held by its council, which is composed of rep-
resentatives from the member states. The league
convenes summit meetings at least twice a year,
which are often attended by heads of state.

Despite the ideal of unity, there are serious
divisions within the organization that have been
caused by economic inequality, differences in
political organization and philosophy, personality
clashes among leaders, and various historical and
cultural factors. For example, Egypt's domination
of the league under the leadership of President
Jamal Abd al-Nasir (1918-70), a strong secularist,
caused Saudi Arabia to create the Muslim World
League in 1962. Later, Egypt was expelled from
the league for signing a peace treaty with Israel
in 1979, but it was reinstated in 1987. In another
example of disunity, members were unable to
peacefully resolve the crisis caused when Iraq
invaded Kuwait in 1990. They have also been

unable to form a common front for ending the
Arab-Israeli conflicts, although they did pass a
unanimous resolution in March 2002 that called
for recognition of Israel in exchange for Israeli
withdrawal from occupied territories in the West
Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. Divisions con-
tinue to afflict the organization in the aftermath of
the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its
allies in March 2003 and the Lebanese-Israeli war
that erupted in July 2006.

Further reading: Tawfiq Y. Hasou, The Struggle for the
Arab World: Egypt’s Nasser and the Arab League (London
and Boston: KPI, 1985).

Arafat (also Arafa)

Arafat is a plain located 12 miles from downtown
Mecca where pilgrims come to stand and listen to
SERMONS during the HAJJ, the annual Muslim pil-
grimage. This gathering, which occurs at midday
on the ninth day of the 12th month of the Muslim
year (Dhu al-Hijja), is one of the essential require-
ments of the hajj. If a pilgrim fails to be there on
time, her hajj performance is considered to be
invalid, and she must perform it again another
year in order to satisfy the Islamic pilgrimage
requirement. The Quran mentions Arafat once:
“When you pour forth from Arafat, remember
God at the sacred monument, and remember how
he guided you when previously you had gone
astray" (Q 2:198). According to Islamic tradition,
Arafat is where Adam and Eve were reunited after
their expulsion from paradise and where Gabriel
taught Abraham the hajj rites.

Among the distinguishing features of the plain
are Mount Mercy, also called Arafat, a hill where
Muhammad gave a farewell sermon during the
hajj he performed just before his death in 632.
There is a large mosque nearby called the Namira
Mosque, where hajj sermons are delivered today
and broadcast throughout the world. There is
another mosque at Muzdalifa, the “sacred monu-
ment" mentioned in the Quran, where pilgrims

58 Arafat, Yasir

camp for the night after standing at Arafat and
where they gather the pebbles that they will throw
at three pillars in Mina on the way back to Mecca
to conclude the hajj rituals. The plain of Arafat is
today criss-crossed by paved roads and modern
facilities to meet the needs of the more than 2 mil-
lion pilgrims who gather there each year.

Further reading: Laleh Bakhtiar, Encyclopedia of Islamic
Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chicago: ABC
International Group, 1996); F. E. Peters, The Hajj: The
Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Arafat, Yasir (1929-2004) controversial leader
of the Palestinian nationalist movement from the
1960s and the first president and prime minister of
the Palestinian National Authority
Yasir Arafat was the foremost political leader
of the Palestinian people, an Arab population
that identifies its homeland with Palestine (the
West Bank, Gaza, and Israel). Educated as a civil
engineer, he was a cofounder of the Fatah orga-
nization in 1959 (the core unit of the Palestine
Liberation Organization I PLOD and served as
chairman of the PLO from 1969 until his death.
In 1994, he became president and prime minister
of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), an
interim government created in anticipation of the
establishment of a legitimate Palestinian nation-
state in the West Bank and Gaza. Though many
Israelis regarded Arafat as a terrorist because of
his involvement in the Palestinian armed struggle
for national self-determination, he was also rec-
ognized internationally as the legitimate leader
of the Palestinian people. He shared the 1994
Nobel Peace Prize with then Israeli prime min-
ister Yitzhak Rabin (1922-95) and Israeli foreign
minister Shimon Peres (b. 1923) for his role in
negotiating the 1993 Palestinian-lsracli interim
peace agreement in Oslo, Norway. He was a con-
troversial figure throughout his career, considered
a hero and freedom fighter by some (especially

Palestinians), a corrupt dictator by others (includ-
ing some Palestinians), and a terrorist (especially
by Israelis and many supporters of Israel in the
United States).

Arafat was one of the most prominent fig-
ures on the Middle Eastern political scene for
nearly 40 years. A certain amount of mystery and
paradox has surrounded his private and pub-
lic life, due partly to the mythology that Arafat
himself advanced. Although he claimed to have
been born in Jerusalem, he was actually born to
Palestinian parents in Cairo, Egypt, where he
spent much of his early life. His given name was
Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Rauf Arafat
al-Qudwa al-Husayni, but he chose the aliases
Yasir (also written as Yasser) and Abu Ammar
in honor of Yasir Abu Ammar, one of the heroic
companions of Muhammad, the Islamic prophet.
A Sunni Muslim, Arafat often quoted the Quran
in his speeches, abstained from pork and alcohol,
and followed an ascetic lifestyle. Although he was
affiliated with the radical Muslim Brotherhood
in the 1940s and 1950s, the PLO he headed is a
nonreligious entity that favors the creation of a
secular state where Muslims, Jews, and Christians
alike will have citizenship. The successes that he
achieved in his life were matched by serious rever-
sals and failures that have led to the loss of life
of many Palestinians and Israelis. After the sign-
ing the Oslo Accords, winning the Nobel Peace
Prize, and returning to Gaza in triumph in 1994,
Arafat's fortunes declined significantly in the face
of an internal struggle against the militant Islamic
organization Hamas and the hard-line tactics of
an Israeli government headed by his long-time
enemy, Ariel Sharon. The United States also chal-
lenged Arafat's leadership of the PNA, especially
after it launched its global war on terrorism in the
aftermath of the September 11th attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001,
with which neither Arafat nor the PLO had any
connection whatsoever. In his last years, Arafat's
movements were restricted by Israeli armed forces
to his compound in Ramallah on the West Bank.

archaeology 59

Just before his death from unknown causes, Israeli
authorities allowed him to be flown to France for
medical care, where he died on November 11,
2004. His remains were flown to Cairo, Egypt, for
a state funeral and then to Ramallah for burial.

See also Arab-Israeli Conflicts; Judaism and
Islam.

Further reading: Said K. Aburish, Arafat: From Defender
to Dictator (New York: Bloomsbury, 1998); Barr) 7 Rubin
and Judith Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biogra-
phy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

archaeology

Archaeology is the modern study of material
remains from the past in order to understand and
explain history, culture, and social life. It involves
scientific excavation, field surveys, careful record-
ing of data, and critical thinking about what the
data mean. Countries in the Middle East and Asia
have been centers of archaeological inquiry since
the late 18th century, but most of the excavat-
ing has been done on the sites of ancient, pre-
Islamic, civilizations. Archaeological research in
locations associated with Islamicatc civilizations
has increased in recent years, however. Muslim
cities, towns, fortifications, way stations, and
cemeteries from Spain and Africa to Central Asia
and Indonesia provide significant amounts of
material evidence about the past, encompassing
a time span of nearly 1,400 years. This evidence
includes the remains of mosques, palaces, shrines,
houses, hostels, burials, ceramics, inscriptions,
and coinage.

Even though pre-lslamic history is dismissed
by some pious Muslims as a time of pagan igno-
rance (the Jahildta ), Muslim historical writing
from the Middle Ages demonstrates an early inter-
est in gathering and preserving information about
antiquities, or the material remains of bygone
times. These accounts mixed together histori-
cal fact, legends from the Quran, and folklore
about ancient peoples and sites in Arabia, Egypt,

Iraq, and Iran. Nevertheless, when it came to Isl-
amicate cities and buildings, medieval authors did
provide richly detailed information about their
foundation, design, inhabitants, renovation, and
destruction. Much of what we know today about
medieval cities such as Mecca, Medina, Baghdad,
Cairo, Damascus, and Cordoba comes from the
work of these scholars.

Archaeology in the modern study of the Mid-
dle East and Asia began with Napoleon Bonapar-
te's invasion of Egypt in 1798 and continued to
develop as European powers competed for colo-
nial dominance in those regions during the 19th
and early 20th centuries. Although Europeans
engaged in outright plundering of the antiqui-
ties of Egypt, Palestine (now Israel, Gaza, and
the West Bank), and Iraq, they also established
research centers and museums that promoted
serious archaeological research and the study of
ancient and “Oriental" languages. These scholars
were mainly interested in uncovering the roots of
Western civilization and verifying the historical
authenticity of the Bible, so they often ignored
archaeological evidence pertaining to Islamic his-
tory and society. Toward the end of the 19th
century, when Europeans became interested in
Islamic art and religion, they began to excavate
sites that dated to the Islamic periods of history
(seventh century to 19th century). Among the
first places to be excavated were Samarqand in
Turkestan (by Russians, 1885), the Qala of Bani
Hammad in Algeria (by French, 1898-1908), and
Samarra in Ottoman Iraq (by Germans, 191 1-20).
The French conducted the first excavations in Iran
from the 1880s to 1931 and in Syria after World
War I. Meanwhile, the British included Islamic as
well as Hindu and Buddhist sites in their Archaeo-
logical Survey of India and conducted excavations
at Islamic sites in Palestine, Transjordan (now
Jordan), and Iraq. Americans became involved in
Middle Eastern archaeology in the 1920s, concen-
trating their efforts in Palestine and Iran. Since
World War II, they have focused attention on
Islamic sites in Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen. While

60 architecture

Western archaeologists have explored sites in the
Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf since the
late 1800s, excavations in Mecca and Medina are
forbidden because these are holy cities.

Muslims were involved with European and
American archaeological activities from the begin-
ning — as authorities who negotiated with them
over excavation and ownership rights and as
laborers. Moreover, Muslims began to acquire the
necessary education and training to participate in
joint excavations with Westerners and to conduct
their own projects, starting in Egypt, Turkey,
and Iraq. Muslim archaeologists also participated
in the founding and administration of national
archaeological societies and museums that now
exist in nearly all Muslim countries. In coop-
eration with international organizations, these
institutions provide new knowledge about the
past, help protect valued monuments and artifacts
from destruction as their respective countries
undergo rapid modernization, and often encour-
age tourism to locations of historical importance.
In addition, governments in recently independent
countries benefit from such institutions in their
efforts to forge national identities that link them
to their ancient and Islamic heritages.

See also architecture; Orientalism.

Further reading: Timothy Insoll, The Archaeology of
Islam (Oxford. U.K.: Blackwell Publishers, 1999); Don-
ald Malcolm Reid, Whose Pharaohs ? Archaeology, Muse-
ums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to
World War I (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press,
2002); Stephen Vernoit, “The Rise of Islamic Archaeol-
ogy." Muqamas 14 (1997): 1-10.

architecture

Architecture is an area of human activity that
involves the design, creation, modification, and
use of the built environment. The study of Islamic
architecture follows the historical development of
the study of Islamic art and is generally included
with it by scholars.

As is the case with art, the history of the field
gave rise to notions that made use of religious and
racial characteristics to capture architectural ten-
dencies. Among these is the idea of the cultivated
garden as the paradise of former desert nomads
and the image of the reward of every good Muslim
or of the courtyard house as the type best suited
to lslamicate societies intent on secluding their
women. These notions often closed the door on
further questioning and investigation and allowed
earlier scholars to concentrate on classifying and
describing buildings and other structures. In con-
trast, the courtyard house is currently understood
as a shared Mediterranean type that responded to
environmental factors ranging from climatic con-
ditions to societal mores. And scholars are begin-
ning to explore the agricultural and economic
functions of gardens as well as their organization,
cultivation, and imagery. These specialized studies
go along with new research in the areas of urban-
ism, the rise of markets and settlements, and the
patterns that are currently creating lslamicate
architecture in areas that were not historically
populated by Muslims, such as is found in Europe
and North America.

As is the case with Islamic art, some histori-
ans of Islamic architecture question the linkages

:

Ibn Tulun Mosque (ninth century) in Cairo, Egypt (Juan
E. Campo)

Arkoun, Muhammad 61

The Court of the Lions in the Alhambra, Granada,
Spain ( 1 3th/ 1 4th century) (Federico R. Campo)

between a house, a citadel, or a school and the
label Islamic , and admit as Islamic only those
buildings created to house religious activities. The
mosque, shrine, tomb, madrasa, and Sufi enclave
are usually included in this category. They arc
united by their uses, by a general (though not
exclusive) avoidance of representations of liv-
ing beings, and usually by a liberal application
of historical and religious inscriptions. Yet even
here contradictions arise; the tomb and shrine, for
example, may well be deemed un-Islamic within
certain Islamic legal and theological positions.
These contradictions, which extend to all catego-
ries of religious Islamic architecture, arise from
the conflation of use and function.

It is the distinction between use and function
that moves Islamic architecture (and art) out of the
supposed natural systems in which scholars have
situated them and places them instead within cul-
tural systems that are capable of producing a mul-
tiplicity of arts and architectures under the rubric
of Islam. Use refers to the actual situations in
which specific buildings or objects are employed,
while function is attached to the reasons the
building is built and the purposes it serves. Both
provoke questions of how, where, when, who, and
why, but (unction focuses mostly on the question

of why. While mosques are built for PRAYER (their
use), they may also be intended to commemorate
the generosity or enhance the prestige of the per-
son who funded them or to signal the presence
of a Muslim community in a new setting (their
function). In this sense, Islamic architecture is no
different from other architectures. It operates as
shelter and as sign, and it is created within rela-
tionships that bind clients, designers, architects,
builders, suppliers, and users.

See also bazaar; cities; houses; mihrab; mina-
ret; Orientalism; purdah.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic
Art (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973);
Robert Hillcnbrand. Islamic Architecture: Form , Func-
tion, and Meaning (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh
Press, 1997); Renata Holod and Hasan-Uddin Khan,
The Mosque and the Modern World: Architects , Patrons,
and Designs since the 1950s (London: Thames &r Hud-
son, 1997); George Michell, ed., Architecture of the
Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning (London:
Thames & Hudson, 1978).

Arkoun, Muhammad (1928- ) noted
modern Muslim philosopher and intellectual
Muhammad Arkoun is one of the most prolific
and academically influential liberal Muslim intel-
lectuals of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
He is among the first generation of Muslim intel-
lectuals who have intentionally directed their
works towards Western audiences and people
living in the majority Muslim world. Most of his
works have appeared originally in French and
later have been translated into Arabic and other
languages.

Arkoun was born on January 2, 1928, in the
Berber village of Taourirt-Mimoun in Algeria.
He has written more than 100 books and articles
and has lectured throughout the world. He is a
senior research fellow and member of the board

' c ^ 62 Armenians

of governors of the Institute of Ismaili Studies
in London, professor emeritus of the history of
Islamic thought at the Sorbonne University in
Paris, former director of the Institute of Arab and
Islamic Studies there, and editor in chief of the
French scholarly journal Arabica. He has taught
as a visiting professor at several universities in
North America and Europe and has earned some
of the most prestigious awards in the humanities
and Islamic studies.

Arkoun is skeptical about the traditional for-
mulations of Islamic institutions, doctrine, and
practice throughout history. He believes that
Islamic authorities' fear of societal chaos and their
desire for order and obedience helped determine
the establishment of Islamic law, thought, and
THEOLOGY. According to him, Muslims must free
themselves from the oppressive constraints of
“orthodox” Islam and work in partnership with
members of other religions in creating a world
that is rooted in peace, equality, mutual under-
standing, and intellectual vigor. In such a world,
there would be no borders and no core, no side-
lined groups and no superior ones. A transformed
and open-ended Islam would become the basis for
societies where people would seek to understand
one another without permitting dogma, ethnic,
linguistic, or other differences to block their con-
tinued cooperation.

For Arkoun, one way that the powerful sway
of Muslim orthodoxy or orthodoxies can be less-
ened is by means of the creation of a new academic
discipline that he calls “applied Islamology." This
discipline would be devoted to analyzing and
criticizing the ideas and institutions within Islam
that have perpetuated discrimination, oppression,
and marginalization.

Arkouns novel and dynamic approach to
Islam is also evident in his methodology with
respect to the Quran. The supreme and perfect
message of the Quran as a revealed sacred text is a
central tenet of Islamic doctrine, and this is one of
the ideas that Arkoun criticizes. He believes that
the question of whether the Quran was revealed

should be suspended pending further academic
inquiry, while he contends there is a vigorous
Quranic intention. For him, this sacred text does
not impose definitive solutions to the practical
problems of human existence. It has the capacity
to generate within humans a regard for themselves,
the world, and the symbols that could potentially
provide them with a sense of meaning.

While Arkouns ideas are thought provoking,
their full impact outside scholarly circles remains
to be seen. One of the main questions that liberal
Muslims such as Arkoun face is the extent to
which their ideas may become institutionalized and
accepted by the Muslim masses who arc not neces-
sarily influenced by intellectual trends in Western
colleges and universities. Nevertheless, Arkouns
life and work will continue to be a tremendous
force within Islamic studies for many more years.

See also education.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking Islam:
Common Questions, Uncommon Answers , trans. and ed.
Robert D. Lee (Boulder, Colo.: Wcstview Press, 1989);
Mohammed Arkoun, The Unthought in Contemporary
Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002); Robert D.
Lee, Overcoming Tradition and Modernity : The Search for
Islamic Authenticity (Boulder, Colo.: Wcstview Press,
1997).

Armenians

Armenians are an ethnic-religious group of people
whose origins date back at least to the middle
of the second millennium B.c.E. Some scholars
believe that Armenians, whose language is Indo-
European, are descendants of populations that
migrated from southeastern Europe to eastern
Anatolia, or the Armenian plateau, as it is some-
times called. This region, located between the
Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas, was a
battleground in which powerful ancient empires,
including Medes, Assyria, Persia, Hellenistic
Greece, Parthia, and Rome fought to expand their

art 63

territories. An inscription on a rock attributed
to Persia’s King Darius refers to Armina, show-
ing that Armenia was known to its neighbors as
early as the sixth century b.c.e. Native dynasties
ruled Armenia for five centuries until the area was
conquered by the Romans. In the fourth century
c.E. , Christianity, to which many Armenians had
already voluntarily converted, became the state
religion of the Roman Empire and as such was
imposed on all Armenians.

From the seventh to the 11th centuries, Arab,
Mongol, and Turkic peoples conquered the ter-
ritories inhabited by Armenians, a transformation
that made many Armenians the subjects of Mus-
lim rulers. However, Christianity, together with
the unique Armenian language, helped Armenians
resist assimilating to the cultures of those who
ruled them over them. With the fall of Constan-
tinople to the Ottomans in the 13th century, all
Armenians in western Asia (the Middle East)
became subjects of Muslim rulers, cither Ottoman
or Persian. In the early 19th century, Russia suc-
cessfully conquered much of the South Caucasus,
including Georgia, eastern Armenia, and northern
Azerbaijan. Many Armenians left Iran and Ana-
tolia and moved to Russian controlled territories,
believing that their status and living conditions
would improve in the Orthodox Christian Russian
Empire. Some Armenians living in the Ottoman
Empire during the Tanzimat reforms also hoped
that their status would improve.

However, many Armenian intellcetualsbelicved
that Armenians* security and status would improve
only with autonomy and that they would have to
fight to obtain it. The revolutions that occurred
in the early 20th century in Russia, Persia, and
the Ottoman Empire inspired many Armenians
to join in armed struggle against their imperial
leaders. Armenian solidarity strengthened after
the Young Turks orchestrated the extermination of
the Armenian population in 1913. Their system-
atic campaign to expel Armenians through forced
migration caused the deaths of an estimated 1
million to 1.5 million Armenians. Many survivors

emigrated, increasing the numbers of Armenians
living in the diaspora. A number of countries they
migrated to are in the Arab Middle East: Syria,
Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt. In the chaotic
conditions created by World War 1 and the Bolshe-
vik revolution in Russia, Armenians established
an independent republic in eastern Armenia, one
that survived only briefly until the Bolsheviks
extended their control in the South Caucasus. For
70 years, Armenia was a socialist republic within
the framework of the Soviet Union under the lead-
ership of the Communist Party in the Kremlin.

In the late 1980s, Gorbachevs glasnost inspired
many Armenians to push for change, and Armenia
declared independence from the Soviet Union in
1990. In 1991, a political dispute between Arme-
nia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-
Karabagh escalated into a military conflict. This
war lasted until 1994, when a cease-fire was in
place, leaving Armenians in control of Karabagh.
Armenians have successfully established the inde-
pendent Republic of Armenia. However, like other
republics of the former Soviet Union, Armenia
suffers from economic stagnation, corruption, and
inadequate development of democratic institu-
tions.

See also Christianity and Islam; Ottoman
dynasty.

Leslie Sargent

Further reading: George A. Bournoutian, A History of
the Armenian People (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Pub-
lishers. 1994); Richard G. Hovannisian, cd. The Arme-
nian People from Ancient to Modern Times (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1997); Ronald Grigor Suny, Looking
toward Ararat: Armenia in Modem History (Bloomington
and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993).

art

Pop artist Andy Warhol (1928-87) defined art
as whatever the artist deemed it to be by affix-
ing his signature to it. Swiss painter Paul Klee
(1879-1940) likened the artist to a tree trunk that

64 art

absorbs nutrients from the roots to produce a dif-
ferent image in the branches and leaves, making
the artist the intermediary between nature and
culture. During the 19th and early 20th centuries
some art historians still championed Academic
painting, which codified styles and stipulated that
they had to coincide with content, resulting in art
that was edifying as well as aesthetically pleasing.
These Euro-American views tell us that art is a
changeable concept; its definitions differ accord-
ing to time, place, and school of thought. Whether
we consider medieval Europe or modern China,
we should expect art to reflect the perceptions of
its creators, consumers, and scholars.

From the 19th century on, the lslamicate
world produced art that is part of the general
history of modern art. Historically, however, the
definition and material of what we know as
Islamic art are different. Indeed, only in moments
of tension is there a sense of an art that is consid-
ered primarily Islamic in its content and inten-
tions (as, for example, in the case of calligraphy
in 10th-century Iraq), and in those cases it is
because the visual formulas followed rules that
were viewed as more “orthodox" than others. As
elsewhere in the world before the dissemination
of the idea of the artist as creative genius, art itself
was not understood in the same ways in the past
as it is today. Rather, artistic value was seen in the
expenditure of surplus — whether surplus skills
and talent or money and material — to produce
objects that performed beyond their immediate
uses (for instance, ceramic plates) by eliciting
pleasure from the viewer or user. As such, a vari-
ety of richly decorated objects in different media
(as opposed to canvas painting and three dimen-
sional sculpture), wall paintings (properly also
part of architecture), and illustrated books form
the bulk of historical Islamic art.

Islamic art is first of all a subdiscipline of art
history concerned with the study of a variety of
visual cultures collected under the rubric Islam.
The designation of the field was in place by
1900 when the first publications titled Islamic

Ceramic artist, Turkey (Juan E. Campo)

Art replaced ones dedicated to the ethno-racial/
regional categories Arab, Persian, Turkish, Mor-
esque, and Indian art. The earlier trend followed
the model of the Napoleonic invasion and explo-
ration of Egypt in 1798, with its agenda of know-
ing, ordering, controlling, and colonizing. Recent
scholarship has made great strides in overcoming
this legacy and its Orientalizing offshoots, but its
effects continue to dominate views of the field and
its contents.

Despite excellent work by archaeologists, pale-
ographers, epigraphers, and historians, Islamic art
was understood up to the mid-20th century as
the material reflection of unchangeable religious
essences and racial characteristics. Among its ste-
reotyped features was the supposed Semitic-Arab
abhorrence of the representation of living beings,
which coincided with Islamic injunctions against

asceticism 65

the making of images. The infinite arabesque,
with its floral, geometric, and calligraphic variet-
ies, compensated for this lack while repeating the
formula of the essential oneness of God. The orna-
mented objects, and especially the rugs and carpets
that were much in demand by collectors and muse-
ums, reflected the Arab Muslim's nomadic desert
heritage, which did not encourage great works of
painting or sculpture, the types of work that popu-
lated European art. An updated version of such
Orientalist views surfaced in Londons World of
Islam Festival in 1976. The films, exhibitions, and
publications that accompanied the festival ensured
the wide dissemination of its views, and some of
these were adopted by some young Arab states in
constructing their national identities.

Islamic art is now conventionally defined as
art made for Muslims by Muslims in primarily
Islamic contexts. The new definition allows for
possibilities of differentiation in place and time
and facilitates the organization of the material into
the chapters of survey books. Nonetheless, it is not
without problems. It locates Islamic art outside
the processes of art production and consumption
studied by art historians. And it endorses chrono-
logical and regional divisions at the expense of
intellectual, philosophical, economic and other
(including religious) developments. Some of these
problems arise from the huge amount of material
in different media studied in the field and from
its temporal and geographic scope: India to Spain
from 650 to 1800 (which still leaves out large
areas with an Islamic presence and interrupts the
temporal range at the point when the field came
into being).

These problems may begin to dissipate once
we realize that Islamic art is a modern Euro-Amer-
ican construct based on otherness and difference.
Once that happens, the material will be opened up
to new theoretical and critical considerations that
will place it more properly within the processes
and histories of human creativity.

See also Orientalism.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom,
“Art and Architecture: Themes and Variations." In The
Oxford Histoty of Islam, edited by John L. Esposito,
215-267 (Oxford: Oxford University Press; Robert
Hillenbrand, Islamic Art and Architecture (New York:
Thames & Hudson, 1999); Donald Malcolm Reid,
Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology', Museums, and Egyptian
National Identity from Napoleon to World War I (Cairo:
The American University Press, 2002); Stephen Vernoit,
ed.. Discovering Islamic Art: Scholars, Collectors and Col-
lections (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000).

asceticism

Asceticism involves a variety of religious practices
that seek to control or manipulate the body and
bodily desires in order to perfect one's mental or
spiritual condition. The word comes from Greek
askesis , which means “training" or “exercise.”
Although it has often been used in connection
with the monastic practices of medieval Chris-
tianity (abstinence, fasting, poverty, vigils, and
retreats), historians of religion now use the term
to study asceticism comparatively in a variety
of religions and cultures. It is a defining charac-
teristic of Hinduism, Buddhism, and, to a lesser
extent, Islam.

Extreme asceticism and celibacy are officially
refuted in Islam, because the ULAMA emphasized
moderation in religious practice. Nevertheless,
a number of practices Muslims engage in have
ascetic features, such as the duties of fasting
during Ramadan and doing the HAJJ to Mecca. In
fasting, Muslims are required to completely avoid
food, drink, and sexual activity during the day-
time for 30 consecutive days every year. Many also
accompany these practices with prayer and late-
night vigils. Participants in the hajj are required
to maintain ritual purity, wear simple garments,
abstain from sex, avoid harming animal life, and
avoid incurring violence. Shaving, haircuts, nail
clipping, and wearing perfume or make-up arc
also banned during the hajj, which lasts about
six days annually. Even almsgiving (zakat) has an

66 Ashari School

ascetic quality, because it obliges Muslims to ren-
der some of their wealth (but not all of it) for the
welfare of the community. A concept of purifica-
tion is associated with this activity, as reflected in
the word zcihat itself, which is based on an Arabic
word for "pure" or "sinless" (zaki).

The virtuosos of asceticism in Islam, however,
are Sufis, those who follow its mystical path.
Indeed, the name sufi is thought to be a reference
to the frock of wool (suf) worn by early ascetics.
Sufis claimed to have been inspired by the example
of Muhammad and early members of the Muslim
community, although historically their techniques
and beliefs seem to have been influenced by pre-
Islamic ascetic traditions found in the religions
of the Middle East and Asia. Muhammad was
remembered for his simple lifestyle, frequent vig-
ils, spiritual retreats, and extra fasting. Later, in
the aftermath of the early Arab Muslim conquests
(seventh and eighth centuries), ascetics such as
Hasan al-Basri (d. 728) were repulsed by the
wealth and luxurious lifestyle enjoyed by Muslim
rulers. They felt that this worldliness distracted
people from keeping their focus on God, obey-
ing his laws, and reaching paradise. Other early
ascetics were Ibrahim ibin Adham (d. ca. 778) and
Rabia al-Adawiyya (d. 801). With the appearance
of organized Sufism after the 10th century, a mem-
ber of a brotherhood ( tariqa ) of Sufis was called
a faqir, “poor man," or its Persian equivalent, der-
vish, because of his adherence to a spiritual life of
poverty. Sufis used ascetic practices to control the
impulses and passions of the lower soul ( nafs ),
and they identified them with stations on the path
to spiritual perfection: poverty, repentance, seclu-
sion, withdrawal, abstinence, renunciation, and
hunger. Special fasting practices, prayer postures,
nighttime vigils, self-mortification, and extended
periods of seclusion were developed by many of
the Sufi brotherhoods, which provided manuals
to their members to guide them in their practices.
Some groups in India, such as the Shattariyya,
adopted yogic forms of asceticism, but this was
not widespread. Others, such as the Qalandars,

engaged in what some call deviant ascetic prac-
tices, such as taking hallucinogenic drugs, walk-
ing about nearly naked, and practicing forms of
self-mutilation.

See also ablution; baqa and fana; Sufism.

Further reading: Carl W. Ernst, Teachings of Sufism
(Boston: Shambala, 1999); Ahmet T. Karamustafa,
Gods Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later
Middle Period , 1200-1550 (Salt Lake City: University of
Utah Press, 1994).

Ashari School

The Ashari School is the foremost school of the-
ology in Sunni Islam. It is named after Abu al-
Hasan al-Ashari (873-935), who sought to define
and defend core doctrines about God, the Quran,
and free will in terms of rational philosophy.
Although we lack details about his life, we know
he was from the southern Iraqi town of Basra and
that he was a member of a respected family that
claimed descent from one of Muhammad's earliest
followers. He was first an enthusiastic supporter
of the Mutazili School, which, armed with Greek
rationalism, refuted traditional religious beliefs
and argued instead that 1) the attributes assigned
to God in the Quran (such as hearing and seeing
or having face and hands) were not part of his
essential being; 2) the Quran was created; and 3)
humans could exercise free will independent from
that of God. However, by the time he was 40 years
old, al-Ashari had become convinced that these
positions and related ones were wrong. Switch-
ing course, he used the Mutazili tools of rational
disputation against them to argue instead that 1)
God's attributes were real, even if we do not know
how they are so; 2) the Quran was God's speech
and therefore eternal and uncreated as he is; and
3) human free will is impossible because God
creates everything, including individual human
actions.

The Ashari School grew in Basra and Baghdad,
drawing its inspiration from al-Ashari's theology

Ashura 67

and method of rational argumentation. By the late
12th century, it had become the dominant Sunni
theological tradition and was officially taught as
a subject in Sunni centers of learning. Among
the most prominent members of this school were
al-Baqillani (d. 1013), al-Baghdadi (d. 1037),
al-Ghazali (d. 1111), and al-Razi (d. 1209). For
centuries, the Ashari School gave a rational basis
to Sunni faith and provided an intellectual defense
against speculative philosophy and Shii doctrines.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, it gave way
to currents of Islamic modernism and secularism
that swept the Muslim world as a result of Euro-
pean colonial expansion and the influx of new
ideas from the West. Many Ashari tenets, however,
continue to hold an important place in contempo-
rary Muslim religious thought.

See also Allah; anthropomorphism; madrasa;
THEOLOGY.

Further reading: Richard M. Frank. Al-Ghazali and the
Asharite School (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,
1994); W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of
Islamic Thought (Oxford: One World Press. 1998).

Ashura

Ashura is the 10th day of the first Islamic month,
Muharram, and the most important holiday of the
year for the Shia. It had been a day of fasting for
pre-islamic Arabs and for Jews (identified with
Yom Kippur) and was recognized by Muhammad
(d. 632) as an Islamic day of fasting, though when
the month of Ramadan was made the holy month
of fasting for Muslims, the fast of Ashura became
voluntary rather than mandatory. Islamic tradition
has associated this important day with biblical
events recognized by Jews and Christians: It has
been considered to be the day when Noahs ark
landed after the Flood and when Jonah was freed
from the fish that had swallowed him.

A more documented event occurred on this
day in the year 680, one that was to have serious
implications for Islamic history. Husayn IBN Ali,

the grandson of the Prophet, was killed in the
desert of Karbala in Iraq by the Umayyad caliph
Yazids (r. 680-683) forces. This event has come
to symbolize in sacred history and ritual the rift
between Shiis and Sunnis and led to the develop-
ment of martyrdom as a definitive value of Shiism.
So, for the Shia the first 10 days of the month
of Muharram, leading up to the day of Ashura,
are a time of mourning for the death of Husayn.
In Iran and other Shii-dominated areas (for
example, Lebanon, Bahrayn, and Shii communi-
ties in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan,
as well as immigrant communities in Europe and
North America), mourners express their sorrow
in a complex of public and private ceremonial
gatherings, street processions, and morality plays.
Public lamentations sometimes reach a frenzy in
which men beat their breasts or slash their heads
to draw blood in commemoration of the spilling
of Husayns BLOOD at Karbala. Theatrical perfor-
mances reenact the events of the Karbala tragedy.
Another rite performed during Ashura in Iran
and areas influenced by Pcrsianatc culture is the
roxvzeh hhani (also known as a efiraya, “reading,”
in Arabic-speaking Iraq), which consists of lam-
entations, moving sermons, and improvised read-
ings about events that transpired at Karbala. The
name roxvzeh is derived from a book of Karbala
narratives. The Garden of the Martyrs (Raxvdat al-
shuhada ), written by Husayn Waiz Kashifi around
1503, in connection with the establishment of the
Shii Safavid dynasty in Iran. People of all classes
participate in these gatherings, including Sunnis,
and, in India, Hindus and Buddhists. Women
often organize Ashura gatherings in their homes.

See also calendar; holidays; Husayniyya;
Twelve-Imam Shiism; Umayyad Caliphate.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Kamran Scot Aghaie, cd., The Women
of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses
in Modern Shii Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2005); Peter Chelkowski, ed., Taziyeh: Ritual and
Drama in Iran (New York: New York University Press,

68 Assassins

1979); Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, Guests of the Sheik
(New York: Anchor Books, 1995); David Pinault, The
Shiites: Ritual and Popular Piety in a Muslim Community
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).

Assassins

In the 12th century, Europeans gave the name
Assassins to a group of ruthless killers they had
heard about during their CRUSADES and travels in
the Middle East. One of the most famous accounts
about them is found in the writings of world trav-
eler Marco Polo (1254-1324). He described the
Assassins as agents recruited by a leader called
Old Man of the Mountain, who kept them drugged
and entertained in hidden gardens patterned after
those of the Islamic paradise as described in the
Quran. When the leader wanted them to do his
bidding, which included the assassination of rul-
ers and officials, he would send them out with the
promise that when they accomplished their tasks
ANGELS would carry them back to paradise as a
reward. By the 14th century, Europeans were using
the term assassin more generally for anyone who
murdered a ruler or high-ranking official, which is
the meaning it still has today. The name is origi-
nally from the Arabic hashishi, someone addicted
to hashish (a narcotic made from Indian hemp).

The actual Assassins, as distinguished from the
ones imaginatively described by Europeans, were
Nizari Isamaili Shia — devoted followers of Hasan-i
Sabbah (d. 1124), a charismatic Shii leader who
announced the coming of a new religious era and
led an upraising against Sunni Muslim rulers in the
Middle East. His trained fighters, who were willing
to sacrifice their lives for him, operated out of for-
tresses in the remote mountains of Syria and Persia
(Iran), the most famous of which was Alamut,
located in the Elburz Mountains near the Caspian
Sea. These fighters would infiltrate towns and pal-
aces to carry out their assignments, which included
political assassinations as w^ell as other disruptive
actions. They inspired fear and hatred in the hearts
of Sunni authorities, who were also contending

with European crusader armies in Syria and Pales-
tine at that time. Sunnis usually called the Nizaris
“apostates," but they also tried to insult them by
calling them hashishis. Legends about the Assas-
sins began to circulate among European crusaders
and travelers in the Middle East at this time. The
Mongols from the steppes of Central Asia finally
put an end to Nizari rule in Persia in 1256, and the
Mamluk rulers of Egypt did the same in Syria by
1273. The violent activities of the Assassins ceased,
and the history of the Nizari branch of Islam took a
different turn as its members retreated from politics
and killing to live more peacefully in widely scat-
tered communities where some followed the path
of Sufism and engaged in new missionary activities,
especially in Persia and India.

See also Aga Khan; apostasy; Fatimid dynasty;
fidai; Ismaili Shiism.

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their
History and Doctrines (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1990); Bernard Lewis, The Assassins: A
Radical Sect in Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1967).

Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938)
founder and first president of the modern
Republic of Turkey

Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonica, then part
of the Ottoman Empire. He attended military
schools in the Balkans, where Greek and Slavic
nationalist movements were active, and went
on to graduate from the military academy in
Istanbul, the Ottoman capital. During his early
military appointments, he worked to organize
opposition to the despotism ol the Ottoman
sultan Abdulhamid, though he was not directly
involved in the Young Turk revolution of 1908.
He gained military fame as commander of the
Turkish troops that repelled the invasion of Allied
forces at Gallipoli in 1915.

Dissatisfied with the Ottoman regimes compli-
ance with the British, who occupied Istanbul after

Aurangzeb 69

World War I, Mustafa Kemal left Istanbul in 1919
to gather support for a resistance movement in
Anatolia, eventually settling in Ankara, where the
Grand National Assembly was opened in 1920.
When Turkish troops under Mustafa Retrial's com-
mand defeated the Greek troops that had invaded
western Anatolia in 1921, the nationalist forces
earned enough bargaining power to reject the
terms of the Sevres treaty (the World War 1 peace
agreement that would have divided the country)
and to abolish the Ottoman sultanate, which had
reigned for 600 years. In 1923, a new treaty ensur-
ing Turkey’s borders was agreed to at Lausanne
(in Switzerland), and the republic was proclaimed
with Mustafa Kemal as its president.

Mustafa Kemals regime was autocratic, which
allowed him to push through a series of reforms
designed to rebuild Turkey as a modern. Western,

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (Juan E. Campo)

secular nation. In 1924, he abolished the CALIPH-
ATE, which Ottoman sultans had assumed since
the 16th century, and closed religious schools.
He closed the dervish lodges, which were seen
as threatening to the secular regime, and banned
the wearing of religious dress outside of places of
worship. He had a new civil code adopted, bring-
ing equal rights to WOMEN. He had the Arabic
ALPHABET replaced with a modified Latin alphabet
and encouraged the replacement of Arabic and
Persian words in the language with “pure" Turkish
words, even if they had to be invented.

In 1934, a law was passed requiring all citizens
to adopt a surname, and Mustafa Kemal chose
for himself that of Ataturk, meaning “Father of
the Turks.” Ataturk died in 1938 in Istanbul after
having served four terms as president, but his
legacy has continued until today. His mausoleum
in Ankara continues to be visited regularly; his
image appears on every banknote and in every
public building, and his statues stand prominently
in every city and town. Boulevards, universities,
towns, and Istanbul's international airport are
named after him. The ideas he brought to frui-
tion — constituting an ideology known as Rental-
ism — also continue to make up the dominant
ideology of the Turkish state.

See also OTTOMAN DYNASTY; SECULARISM.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Lord Kinross, Ataturk: The Rebirth
of a Nation (London: Weidcnfeld & Nicolson. 1964);
Andrew Mango. Ataturk: The Biography oj the Founder of
Modern Turkey (New York: Overlook Press, 1999).

Aurangzeb (1618-1707) Indian Muslim
ruler who led the Mughal Empire when it controlled
the greatest amount of territory on the Indian
subcontinent

The great grandson of Akbar (r. 1356-1605) and
son of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58), Aurangzeb came
to power during a bloody civil war for succession
in 1657. After killing all of his brothers, his rivals

70 Australia

for power, and imprisoning his father, he secured
control in northern India and engaged in a scries
of ongoing military campaigns to conquer inde-
pendent kingdoms in the south. When he died in
1701, his empire stretched from the Himalayas in
the north to the southern edge of the Deccan Pla-
teau and from Bengal in the cast to Afghanistan in
the west. His successors were unable to maintain
control over such a vast territory, so the Mughal
Empire began to break up into smaller states again
after his death, setting the stage for the onset of
British colonial influence in the mid-1700s.

Aurangzcb is remembered for his religious
conservativism and his intolerant attitude toward
his non-Muslim subjects, in contrast to Akbar and
other Mughal rulers. He promoted strict adher-
ence to the SHARIA, enhanced the influence of the
Sunni ULAMA in the court, and actively encouraged
conversion to Islam. One of his most important
contributions to the Muslim community was his
sponsorship of the Fatawa-i Alamgiri (completed in
1675), a comprehensive compilation of Sunni legal
rulings. His religious conservativism had serious
drawbacks, however. Imperial patronage of MUSIC,
ART, and architecture decreased, and even though
Hindus continued to serve as officials and allies
of the Mughal government, their status declined.
Active opposition to Aurangzeb, which included
Muslims, grew as a result of his destruction of
Hindu temples, the imposition of special taxes and
restrictions, and his persecution of the growing
Sikh community in northern India, which resulted
in the martyrdom of one of their leaders, Guru
Tegh Bahadur (d. 1675). The legacy of Aurangzcbs
policies has continued to fuel Hindu-Muslim ten-
sions in South Asia since independence and parti-
tion in 1947.

See also Dara Shikoh; Hinduism and Islam;
Mughal dynasty.

Further reading: Gordon Johnson, Cultural Atlas of
India (New York: Facts On File, 1996); John F. Richards,
The Mughal Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993).

Australia

The continent of Australia joins neighboring
islands of Indonesia and New Zealand in demar-
cating the southwestern extent of the Pacific
Ocean and the eastern extent of the Indian Ocean.
Australia is separated from Indonesia by the Ara-
tura Sea and from New Zealand by the Tasmania
Sea. Also part of the country of Australia is the
large island of Tasmania, off the continents south-
east coast. The country has a total land area ol
some 2,967,100 square miles.

The Aboriginal peoples, Australia's original
inhabitants, settled the land as early as 40,000
years ago. They created a diversity of cultures
across the continent. They seem to have migrated
from Southeast Asia. Europeans made note of
Australia's existence in the 17th century, but
only in 1770 did Captain James Cook (1728-79)
claim it for Great Britain. British settlement began
less than two decades later, the first settlement
being the infamous penal colony at Botany Bay.
Over the next two centuries, the descendants
of British settlers became the dominant force in
Australia, making up two-thirds of its 19 million
inhabitants. The remaining third constitutes an
extremely diverse ethnic spectrum that includes
many people from former British colonies from
India and Southeast Asia.

The original Muslims in Australia were from
Afghanistan, men employed as camel drivers.
Many settled in central Australia, and the con-
temporary town of Alice Springs was at one time
referred to by local residents as Mecca. That
original Afghan community did not perpetuate
itself and eventually died out. (Some Muslims
point to evidence of even earlier Muslims coming
to Australia from Malaysia and Indonesia to settle
in fishing villages along the northern coast.) Over
the next decades, the number of Muslims grew
slowly and fluctuated widely. From a low point in
the early 1930s (around 2,000), the community
reached more than 10,000 by 1970. Since that
time, it has grown at a much more rapid rate. It
was approaching 150,000 by the time of the 1991

authority 71

national census and today includes some esti-
mated 315,000 residents. It constitutes about 1.5
percent of Australia's 21 million citizens.

The Muslim community has an extremely
diverse ethnic makeup, its members deriving from
more than 50 countries, including those in west-
ern Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia.
The largest group of Australian Muslims comes
from Lebanon and Turkey. Its members have
concentrated in the major urban centers in the
southeastern part of the continent. Through the
last decades of the 20th century, regional councils
of Muslims were formed, leading to the creation
of the Australian Federation of Muslim Councils,
the primary national Islamic organization. The
growth of the community has allowed a variety of
regional and national organizations, such as the
United Muslim Women Association, to emerge.

The Australian Federation appoints a titular
spiritual head of the Islamic community who
bears the title mufti of Australia and New Zea-
land. The current mufti, Egyptian-born Taj Al-
Din Hamid Abd Allah Al-Hilali (b. 1941), has
become well known for his outspokenness, espe-
cially in his defense of the Muslim community
in the wake of recent bombings in the United
States, Bali, and London, the commitment of
Australian troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, and
government efforts to suppress possible terrorist
acts in Australia.

Nationally, Muslims have concentrated on the
education of the next generation and where pos-
sible have opened Islamic schools for youths at
the primary and secondary levels. Leaders have
expressed concern about the secular atmosphere
in the country and laws promoting the liberation
of youths in their mid-teens.

Today there are more than 100 mosques and
prayer halls in Australia. Most are Sunni in
orientation, with no one legal school or ethnic
membership dominating. The largest number of
mosques and Islamic schools are found in the Syd-
ney and Melbourne urban areas. A1 Zahra College,

the first Islamic institution of higher learning, is
located in Sydney.

Sec also Europe; United States; West Africa.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: A. H. Johns and A. Saced, “Muslims
in Australia: The Building of a Community" In Muslim
Minorities in the West, Visible and Invisible, edited by
Yvonne Haddad and Jane I. Smith, 192-216 (Walnut
Creek. Calif.: Altamira Press, 2002); Abdullah Saeed.
Australian Muslims: Their Beliefs, Practices and Institu-
tions (Melbourne: Department of Immigration and
Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, Australian Mul-
ticultural Foundation, University of Melbourne, 2004).
Available online. URL: www.amf.net.au/PDF/rcligion-
CulturalDiversily/Rcsource_Manual.pdf. Accessed on
December 27. 2005; Wafia Omcr and Kirsty Allen, “The
Muslims in Australia." In A Yearbook of Australian Reli-
gious Organizations, edited by Peter Bentley and Philip
J. Hughes, 114-115 (Kew, Victoria: Christian Research
Association, 1997).

authority

Authority is the basis by which power is legiti-
mately used to bring about compliance and obedi-
ence. In secular terms, it is often connected with
how leaders and governments justify their right
not only to exist, but also to rule others with their
consent. In a hereditary monarchy, for example,
authority is vested in the person of the king and
his dynasty. In a liberal democracy, authority
is vested in the people, who then consent to be
legally subject to those they elect to governmen-
tal office. In either case, the exercise of authority
displaces the need to rely upon only brute force to
obtain compliance. Max Weber (d. 1920), one of
the founders of modern sociology, identified three
basic types of authority that are generally accepted
by modern scholars: 1) traditional authority based
on the sanctity of the past, 2) charismatic author-
ity involving the sanctity of individuals, and 3)
rational-legal authority involving bureaucratic
organizations. These three ideal types of authority

Genealogy of Muhammad, the Caliphs, and the Shii Imams

Quraysh

I

Qusayy

Abd al-Uzza Abd al-Manaf

Abd al-Dar

Abd Qusayy

Abu Bakr

Hashim

Abd al-Muttalib
(d. ca. 578)

Abd Shams

I

Umayya

Abdullah Abu Talib
(d. ca. 579) (d. ca. 619)

Aisha =MUHAMMAD
(ca. 570-632)

Muhammad

Khadija

Fatima

(605-633)

= Ali
1st Imam
(597-661)

Abu Lahab Hamza al-Abbas
(d. ca. 624) (d. ca. 625) (d. ca. 653)

Abul-as

Abbasid

caliphs

(750-1258)

al-Hakam

Marwan I
(623-685,

Affan

I

Uthman
3rd caliph

r. 684-685) (r. 644-656)

I

later

Umayyad caliphs
(684-750)

Harb

Abu Sufyan
(d. ca. 653)

Muawiya I
(r. 661-680)

early Umayyad caliphs
(661-683)

Hasan Husayn

2nd Imam 3rd Imam
(624-669) (626-680)

I

Ali, Zaynul-Abidin

4th Imam
(658-712/713)

Muhammad al-Baqir
5th Imam
(676-ca. 743)

I

Jafar as-Sadiq
6th Imam
(699-765)

Zayd

(ca. 694-740)

Musa al-Kazim

Ismail

7th Imam

(ca. 721-755)

(745-799)

1

Ali ar-Rida
8th Imam
(765-818)

1

Muhammad at-Taqi

9th Imam

(810-835)

1

Ali al-Hadi

Zayd

Ismaili Fatimid

10th Imam Caliphate in Egypt

(ca. 827-868)

1

Hasaan al-Askari

11th Imam

(844-874)

1

Imam Mahdi

12th Imam

(909-1171)

Ismaili

(868-874-occultation)

Shiism

© Infobase Publishing

authority 73

apply both to secular and religious social institu-
tions, and they help us to understand the complex
networks of authority that have formed in the
history of Islam and that are evident in Islamicate
societies today.

Sacred authority in Islam begins with God,
the Quran (Gods word), and Muhammad (the
conveyer of Gods word). The Quran declares
that God is lord of all CREATION (Q 1:2) and that
he holds sovereignty over the heavens and the
earth (Q 5:40). Humans, therefore, are destined
to be his “servants'’ or “worshippers.” Indeed,
the human acknowledgment of God’s authority
is expressed in Islam’s Five Pillars, which arc
collectively called ibadat, “duties of worship/ser-
vitude.'’ The Quran alludes to its own authority as
a sacred scripture when it states “That is the book
in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the
God-fearing” (Q 2:2). As the “command” (anir)
revealed by the “lord of the worlds” (Q 56:80), the
Quran is connected with the qualities of divine
sovereignty, such as nobility (Q 56:77), glory (Q
50:1), might (Q 15:87), and wisdom (Q 36:2). In
THEOLOGY, the Quran is regarded as God's speech
and is one of his eternal attributes. Muslims turn
to it for guidance with respect to matters of belief
and religious practice, and it is the first of the
four roots of religious law (fiqh). Among humans,
God’s authority (sultan) is entrusted above all
to his prophets and messengers, the recipients
and transmitters of God's word (Q 11:96) whom
people must obey (Q 4:64). It is Muhammad in
particular who is to be followed, for the Quran
declares, “Whoever obeys the messenger obeys
God” (Q 4:80). His authority is based on his per-
sonal charisma, but it also involves the authority
of a sacred tradition of prophets that reaches back
to Adam, the first human being, and the creation.
Aside from the Quran itself, Muhammad's author-
ity in the early Muslim community is reflected in
a separate document known as the Constitution
of Medina, which stipulates that if the early com-
munity is ever in disagreement, it should refer the
matter to God and to Muhammad. The long-term

importance of Muhammad as an authority for the
Muslim community was assured with the collec-
tion of hadiths about his sayings and actions and
the establishment of Muhammad’s sunna (rules
for belief, worship, and moral conduct) as a
basis for law in the ninth century. Inheritance of
Muhammad's personal charisma was to become
an important aspect of Muslim rulers' author-
ity, as it was for the Abbasids, the Fatimids, and
the contemporary monarchies of Morocco and
Jordan. Among the various divisions of the Shia,
descent from Muhammad through Ali and Fatima
is a necessary qualification of the divinely guided
Imams, people the Shia have regarded as the ideal
rulers and religious figures for Muslims.

With the passage of time and the rise of Islamic
empires, the networks of authority became more
complex. The Quran acknowledges this complex-
ity when it states, “obey God, the messenger, and
those in authority ( amr ) among you” (Q 4:59).
Though Muhammad's successors, the caliphs,
first saw themselves mainly as tribal chieftains,
after the rise of the Islamic empire they claimed
primary authority in both spiritual and worldly
affairs. This can be seen in the formal titles they
took: “God’s deputy” ( khalifat Allah), rather than
“deputy/succcssor of God's messenger” ( khalifat
rasul Allah), or even “commander (amir) of the
faithful” and “God's authority (sultan) on earth.”
Several of the early Abbasid caliphs (eighth to
ninth centuries) attempted to claim the exclusive
right to decide matters of religious doctrine. By
the 10th century, in the face of growing challenges
to their authority in religious matters, rulers had
negotiated a division of legitimate power with the
ULAMA, the experts in Islamic law and tradition.
Caliphs, sultans, and kings exercised authority in
worldly affairs, while the ulama claimed mastery
in the realm of religion. The actual division of
labor between the rulers and ulama was rarely
so clear, however, for the rulers were expected to
uphold and enforce sharia as well as patronize the
ulama. On the other hand, the ulama, in addition
to interpreting the sharia, could exercise moral

74 authority

authority over rulers by either upholding or con-
testing their legitimacy. Only in the 20th century
did the ulama ever act to overthrow a ruler and
replace him with one of their own — the establish-
ment of the Islamic Republic of Iran under Ayatol-
lah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 was the exception
rather than the rule.

Select women also held positions of author-
ity among both rulers and religious scholars.
Women in the ruling elites were occasionally
involved in making decisions of state and influ-
encing the selection of rulers, and they would
also make donations to fund mosques and reli-
gious schools. Women from scholarly families
even became famous as teachers, particularly in
the science of hadith during the Middle Ages.
Muhammad's wife AlSHA (d. ca. 678) is an exem-
plary figure, because she is remembered for her
leading role in the political and religious affairs
of her time.

In addition to the rulers and the ulama, Sufi
brotherhoods also developed their own concepts
of authority. The Sufis consider themselves to be
disciples of a master Sufi, known as a SHAYKH or
pir. This Sufi master is to be obeyed absolutely
because of the power of his personal charisma,
or holiness, but his authority is also recognized
because of his inclusion within a spiritual lin-
eage of saints that links him to Ali ibn Abi Talib
(d. 661) or Abu Bakr (d. 634) and ultimately to
Muhammad. Recognition of the masters status is
expressed in Sufi rituals and prayers. Sainthood
is a related type of charismatic authority recog-
nized in Sufism, where even though the saint
was thought to be completely obedient to God,
he or she was also Gods intimate friend (vval/)
and an embodiment of Gods wisdom and bless-
ing power in the world. There are many women
counted among the saints, but as Sufi masters,
they are a minority. In any case, the Sufis had
to negotiate their own spheres of authority with
those of the rulers and the ulama; they were
often tied to both by bonds of kinship, loyalty,
and patronage.

Since the mid- 18th century, the networks of
authority that formed during the Middle Ages
have been fragmented by a variety of histori-
cal forces. Two of the decisive forces for change
were the breakdown of the Ottoman, Safavid,
and Mughal Empires that once ruled millions
of people between the Mediterranean and the
Bay of Bengal, and the invasion of Muslim lands
by European colonial empires. The major shifts
in political power caused by these changes led
in turn to profound changes in the traditional
military, political, legal, educational, and eco-
nomic institutions. The authority of the ulama
became increasingly circumscribed as Western-
style institutions and values were adopted by
reform-minded Muslims and colonial administra-
tors. Moreover, the introduction of the printing
press to Muslim lands during the 19th century
not only made it possible for the transmission of
new ideas and visions to more people, but it also
enabled more Muslims to become literate and
consult their own sacred scriptures, commentar-
ies, histories, literature, and books of religious
law than ever before. The ulama had to contend
with emerging national aspirations among Mus-
lims and imported Western secularist ideals,
while at the same time debating with ordinary
Muslims who wanted to consult and interpret
their religious heritage on their own. Later, the
introduction of broadcast media and the internet
accelerated these processes. The overall result is
that multiple and frequently contending notions
of authority are at play in Muslim communities,
not always with the best results. In some cases,
sacred authority has been mobilized to counteract
and resist Western involvement in Muslim coun-
tries; in other cases, it has been manipulated by
tyrants and Muslim radical groups to consolidate
power and suppress pluralistic and democratic
forces. The result is the creation of authoritarian
regimes that hold a number of Muslim countries
in their grip today, often with the approval and
support of Western powers, especially in coun-
tries where OIL is a major resource.

autobiography 75

See also Abbasid Caliphate; ahl al-bayt ; Allah;
caliph; imam; Shiism.

Further reading: Arthur F. Buehler. Sufi Heirs of the
Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the
Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1998); Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds,
Gods Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of
Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986);
Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996);
Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism (Boston:
Shambhala, 1997); Ann K. S. Lambton, State and Gov-
ernment in Medieval Islam: An Introduction to the Study
of Islamic Political Theory: The Jurists (Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 1981); Max Weber, The Theory of
Social and Economic Organization (New York: Macmil-
lan Company, 1964).

autobiography

Autobiography is a kind of literature in which
authors write primarily about their own lives and
about the people, places, ideas, and events that
affected them. It is sometimes also called self-
narrative. In the 20th century, most European
and American scholars held that autobiography
was a product of individual self-consciousness
that originated uniquely in “Western civilization"
inspired by a Christian outlook and that it rarely
occurred anywhere else in the world or in other
religious communities before the modern period.
This view has been seriously questioned in recent
years as the literature of other civilizations has
been further studied and translated. Scholars are
now finding significant evidence for traditions of
premodern autobiographical writing in non-West-
ern cultures, especially in Islamicate ones.

Islamic autobiographical literature before
the 20th century was written mainly in Arabic,
Persian, and Turkish, the three leading literary
languages of Muslims during the Middle Ages.
The first Muslim autobiographies that we know
anything about were written by ninth-century his-

torians, mystics, and officials. In later centuries,
this list grew to include religious scholars, jurists,
philosophers, poets, physicians, scientists, rulers,
politicians, soldiers, and converts. Pre-Islamic
autobiographies that had been translated from
Persian and Greek may have influenced some of
these authors, but many were more inspired by
the biographies of Muhammad (d. 632) and the
first Muslims, who were regarded as ideal role
models. Later writers, in their turn, wanted to set
examples of themselves for their readers. Oth-
ers wanted to use their life stories to show how
God had blessed them. In Sufi literature, auto-
biographical narratives recounted the spiritual
journeys of the authors, including their dreams
and visions. Among the most famous Sufi auto-
biographical writings are those of Abu Hamid
al-Ghazali (d. 1111), Ruzbihan Baqli (d. 1209),
Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240), and Shah Wali Allah (d.
1762). Other prominent Muslims who have left
autobiographies arc the physician and philoso-
pher Ibn Sina (d. 1036), the Syrian warrior-poet
Usama ibn Munqidh (d. 1188), the historian Ibn
Khaldun (d. 1406), and Babur (d. 1530), the
founder of the Mughal dynasty in India. Much
later, several West Africans brought to the United
States as slaves in the 19th century wrote short
autobiographies in Arabic, much to the surprise
of the American public.

When authors in Islamicate lands fell under
the influence of European literary traditions dur-
ing the 19th and 20th centuries, indigenous
autobiographical traditions underwent significant
changes. The number of autobiographies pub-
lished in Muslim countries increased with the
introduction of the printing press, they were writ-
ten in many different modern languages (includ-
ing English), and they included new secular
and national perspectives, as well as more tradi-
tional ones. Egyptian author and educator Taha
Husayns (d. 1973) autobiography, which recalls
his village childhood and his student days at al-
Azhar University in Cairo, embodies the fusion
of the traditional with the modern, and it is still

7 6 Averroes

regarded as a landmark in the history of modern
Arabic literature. Another impact of modernity
has been the publication of womens autobi-
ographies, including those of feminists such
as Huda al-Shaarawi (1879-1947) and Fatima
Mernissi (b. 1940) as well as Islamic activists
such as Zaynab al-Ghazali (d. 2005). For many,
the Autobiography of Malcolm X (first published
in 1964), which recounts the author’s journey
from a life of street crime to leadership in the
African-American Muslim community, is the
most important work of its kind to come from
the North American context.

Sec also Arabic language and literature;
biography; Malcolm X; Persian language and
literature; Turkish language and literature.

Further reading: Taha Husayn, An Egyptian Childhood,
trans. E. H. Paxton (London: Heineman, 1981); Fatima
Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of Harem Girlhood
(Reading. Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1994); Dwight F.
Reynolds, cd., Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the
Arabic Literary Tradition (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2001).

Averroes See Ibn Rushd, Abu Walid Muhammad
ibn Ahmad.

Avicenna See Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn.

Awami League

The Awami (People's) League is one of the two
most powerful political parties in Bangladesh,
together with its rival, the Bangladesh National
Party (BNP). It is an important example of the
secular currents in modern Muslim politics. The
league was founded in 1949 by Husayn Shaheed
Suhrawardy (1892-1963) and other members
of the Bengali branch of the All-India Muslim
League in what was then called East Bengal (after
1955 it was called East Pakistan), a province of

Pakistan created as a result of the partition of
India in 1947. Earlier, Suhrawardy and his col-
leagues had been active in the Indian nationalist
movement against British colonial rule. Created
after partition, the East Pakistan Awami Mus-
lim League (later renamed the Awami League)
gave voice to Bengali Muslims opposed to West
Pakistan's domination of the new country. Bengali
nationalists wanted greater self-rule in a loosely
knit federation, inclusion of Hindus and Sikhs
in the national polity, and recognition of Bangla,
their national language, as an official state lan-
guage. The West Pakistani leadership, however,
wanted to preserve its privileged position, retain
Pakistan's distinct Muslim identity, and keep Urdu
as its only official language.

Suhrawardy was eclipsed in the 1960s by the
charismatic Sheikh Mujibur (Mujib) Rahman
(1920-75), who expanded the Awami League's
appeal to the Bengali masses with his “Six Point
Program'' for more equality in Pakistani affairs.
Advocating a secular parliamentary democracy,
the Awami League won a landslide victory in the
1970 national elections. Its triumph was short-
lived, however, because the Pakistani military
intervened in 1971 to declare martial law, and it
imprisoned Mujib for treason, which precipitated
a war for independence from Pakistan. With the
assistance of Indian troops, East Pakistan thus
became Bangladesh in 1971, and Mujib, released
from prison, became its first prime minister.
The new government's constitution was based
on “four pillars" advocated by Mujib and the
Awami League: democracy, socialism, secular-
ism, and nationalism. The league's popularity
soon declined, however, in the face of a famine
in 1974 and political and economic failures that
resulted in a series of coups after Mujib's death
in 1975. It regained its parliamentary majority in
the 1996 elections, and Mujib's daughter, Shaikh
Hasina Wajid, became Bangladesh's prime min-
ister (1996-2001). The league remains strongly
secular in outlook. As one observer has noted,
the Awami League upholds the idea that “Bangla-

aya 77

deshis are Bengalis who happen to be Muslims,”
while its rival, the BNP (created in 1978), consid-
ers “Bangladeshis to be Muslims who happen to
be Bengalis” (Baxter, p. xiii).

See also democracy; Jinnah, Muhammad Ali;
Hinduism and Islam; secularism.

Further reading: Craig Baxter, Bangladesh: From a
Nation to a State (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press,
1997); Charles P. O'Donnell, Bangladesh: Biography of a
Muslim Nation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984).

aya

Aya is the Arabic word for a verse in the Quran
or more generally a “sign” or “wonder.” In both
senses, Muslims believe that an aya contains a
message from God for human beings to heed.
The verses, or phrases and sentences of different
lengths and styles, arc grouped into chapters in
the Quran, called suras. Of the more than 6,000
verses in the Quran, the shorter ones tend to
be poetic and occur in chapters in the second
half of the book, most of which are associated
with Muhammad's years as a prophet in Mecca
(610-622). Verses in the first half, which date to
the years Muhammad lived in Medina (622-632),
tend to be longer and lack both rhyme and rhythm.
In handwritten copies of the Quran, a floret or
some other decorative marking is often inserted
at the end of each verse to facilitate reading, since
punctuation such as periods and question marks
is not used in old Arabic script. In modern printed
copies, the decorative inserts usually contain the
verse number, thus reflecting the influence of
printed Bibles in the West. Muslim commentators
distinguish between two kinds of verses: those
that are clear and unambiguous ( muhkamat ) and
those that are obscure or mysterious (mutashabi-
h at). The former are generally those to which the
ulama turn when making religious law (f/qh),
while the latter, including the mysterious letters
that begin a number of chapters, have attracted
the attention of speculative thinkers and mystics.

Pilgrimage mural showing Quran verses and other reli-
gious sayings, Qurna, Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

In addition to denoting verses of scripture,
the Quran uses the word aya to denote “signs”
and “wonders" revealed by God in nature and in
narratives of sacred history associated with the
lives of prophets who lived before Muhammad's
time. The signs in nature include the creation
of heaven and Earth, the alternation of day and
night, rainfall, sea wind, the beginning and end-
ing of life, the growth of plants, and the benefits
animals provide to humans (for examples, see Q
36:33-45; 41:37-39; 42:29, 33). In sacred history,
the destruction of unbelievers and the rescue of
believers from peril are included among God's
signs, as exemplified by the story of Noah's ark (Q
54:9-15). Other prophets who performed signs
and wonders according to the Quran arc Moses
(Q 20:17-24) and Jesus (Q 3:49). Muhammad's
opponents in Mecca challenged him to produce
similar signs (Q 6:37), for which his response was
the recitation of Quranic verse (Q 31:7; 45:6),
which brings the two meanings of aya together,
both as a verse and a miraculous sign.

See also Allah; basmala; tafsir.

Further reading: Farid Esack. Quran: A Short Introduc-
tion (Oxford. U.K.: Oneworld. 2001); W. Montgomery
Watt and Richard Bell. Introduction to the Quran (Edin-
burgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1970).

'Css^

78 ayatollah

ayatollah (Arabic: sign of God)

Ayatollah is a title bestowed on the most highly
esteemed religious scholars in Twelve-Imam Shi-
ism since the 19th century It is held by experts
of Islamic law, especially members of the Usuli
School based in Iran and Iraq. Religious educa-
tion in the Shii madrasa system and expertise in
the practice of legal reasoning (ijtihad) are mini-
mum qualifications for becoming an ayatollah,
but there are no other formal requirements. The
madrasas of Qum (Iran), Mashhad (Iran), and
Najaf (Iraq) are where ayatollahs have received
their training and where many of them have
taught. Ayatollahs gain their status by popular
acclamation, which is demonstrated by their abil-
ity to collect religious taxes. They claim that they
are representatives of the Hidden Imam, and the
highest ranking among them are called “sources
of emulation,” meaning that other Shia should fol-
low their rulings. These supreme leaders can also
be called a “grand ayatollahs.” Ayatollahs have
become especially powerful since the Iranian
Revolution of 1978-79.

See also authority; Khomeini, Ruhollah; muj-
tahid; ulama.

Further reading: Moojan Momen, An Introduction to
Shii Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1985); Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran, from Religious Dis-
pute to Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1980).

Ayodhya

A Hindu pilgrimage center in Uttar Pradesh, north
India on the river Sarayu, Ayodhya is now most
famous as the home of a site contested by Hindus
and Muslims as the birthplace of the Hindu god
Rama or the location of an early 16th-century
mosque known as the Babri Masjid. Modern day
Ayodhya is closely linked with the mythical city
of the epic Ramayana, the capital of the god-king
Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu from an earlier
epoch of Hindu history. Historical and archaeo-

logical evidence indicates that the two cities are
not the same, but a vast number of the more than
800 million Hindus in India do not make this
distinction. It is clear that Ayodhya has been an
important pilgrimage city for centuries, noted in
particular as a base for several orders of Hindu
ascetic sadhus (holy men) and for its exception-
ally powerful llanuman temple. The popularity of
Ayodhya as a pilgrimage destination grew under
Mughal patronage in the 16th and 17th centuries,
and until the 19th century the religious conflict
in the town was limited to struggles between rival
orders of Hindus. The Babri Masjid was inau-
gurated in 1528 under the sponsorship of Mir
Baqi, a general in the service of the first Mughal
emperor, Babur (r. 1526-30). In 1859, the British
government erected a fence following several inci-
dents, and it was determined that Hindus would
no longer be allowed to freely enter the mosque
as had been the custom. Then in 1949, idols of
Rama appeared in the mosque, and it was claimed
that a security guard had had a vision of Rama
himself. From that time until 1992, the shrine was
closed for all worship except for an annual Hindu
ceremony to maintain the idols that had been
installed. Dereliction in the courts and on the part
of the government allowed the situation to fester
until in the 1980s the issue was raised by several
Hindu nationalist organizations, in particular the
World Hindu Council (VHP) and the political
party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On December
6, 1992, this movement was successful in draw-
ing an enormous crowd of activists who destroyed
the mosque, triggering Hindu-Muslim riots across
India in which more than 3,000 were killed. After
1992, there was little change in the situation as the
courts failed to rule decisively, and the BJP, which
came to power in 1998, allowed the instigators of
the violence to take up cabinet-level positions in
the government. The question of the temple has
continued to be a triggering issue for Hindu-Mus-
lim violence, most recently setting off a series of
riots in the western state of Gujarat in spring 2002
resulting in more than 2,000 deaths and more than

al-Azhar 79

100,000 people displaced from their homes. In
both 1992 and 2002, the victims were overwhelm-
ingly Muslim, making the identity of the site one
of the most critical, yet intransigent, challenges to
India's multireligious polity. In 2003, the Indian
Supreme Court ordered the Archaeological Survey
of India (ASI) to conduct excavations of the site,
but the results have proved too indefinite to bring
about any resolution.

See also Hinduism and Islam; Mughal dynasty.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: Sarvepalli Gopal, ed.. Anatomy of a
Confrontation: The Rise of Communal Politics in India
(London: Zed Books, 1993); Sushil, Srivastava, The Dis-
puted Mosque: A Historical Inquiry (New Delhi: Vislaar
Publications, 1991); Peter Van dcr Veer, Gods on Earth:
Religious Experience and Identity in Ayodhya (Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1997).

Azad, Abu al-Kalam (1888-1958) Indian
Muslim intellectual and nationalist leader
Abu al-Kalam Azad was a leader in India's struggle
to gain independence from Britain in the early
20th century, and he served as the country's first
minister of education from 1947 until his death
in 1938. His most important religious work was
Tarjuman al-Quran (1931), a two-volume Urdu
language translation and commentary on the
Quran, which he wrote while in prison.

Azad was born in Mecca to an Indian father
and Arab mother and moved with his parents to
Calcutta, India, when he was around 10 years old.
His father, Khairuddin Dihlawi (1831-1908), was
a religious man who chose to give his son a tra-
ditional Islamic education at home. Azad proved
to be a gifted student who was attracted to the
modern ideas of Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-98),
which conflicted with the traditional Sufi outlook
of his father. His thinking was further affected by
his travels in the Middle East in 1908-09, when
he met with nationalists and religious reformers in
Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Egypt. After returning to

India, he established a weekly Urdu journal in 1912
called Al-Hilal (crescent moon), in which he called
upon India's Muslims to unite and join with other
Indians in a nonviolent campaign for independence
from Britain. After the British imprisoned Azad
for three and a half years, he joined with the great
Indian nationalist leader Mohandas K. Gandhi
(1869-1948) in the Khilafat Movement in 1920
and then continued as a leader in the Congress
Party, where he worked to bring Muslims and Hin-
dus together in the independence movement. He
used his knowledge of the Quran and Islamic his-
tory to win support for this effort, as can be seen in
his Tarjuman al-Quran, but many Indian Muslims
felt that they had to work separately from Hindus
to create their own state. The British imprisoned
him several more times in the 1930s and 1940s,
but from 1940 to 1946 he served as president of
the All-India National Congress, after which he
became India's first minister of education. Azad was
completely against the division of India into two
states and was deeply disappointed when Pakistan
and India were partitioned in 1947.

See also All-India Muslim League; Hinduism
and Islam; Jinnah, Muhammad All

Further reading: lan Henderson Douglas, Abul Kalam
Azad: An Intellectual and Religious Biography, eds. Gail
Minault and Christian W. Troll (New Delhi: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1988); Sycda Saiyidain Hameed, Islamic
Seal on India's Independence: Abul Kalam Azad, A Fresh
Look (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998).

al-Azhar (Arabic: the brilliant one)

Al-Azhar is now the most important center of
Islamic learning in and the institution most sym-
bolic of the world of Sunni Islam. It was built by
the Fatimid rulers of Egypt (r. 969-1171) as the
primary mosque and center of missionary out-
reach in their new capital of Cairo. With the rise
to power of the Ayyubid dynasty under Saladin
in 1171, al-Azhar lost much of its prestige, par-
ticularly to other madrasas that arose at this time.

80 al-Azhar

Scholars at al-Azhar taught the Islamic precepts of
Quran, hadith, and law (fiqh) but also such fields
as philosophy and science. In the 13th century,
under the Mamluks, al-Azhar slowly regained
its prominence and was rebuilt and refurbished.
But it was under the Ottoman dynasty, which
conquered Egypt in 1517, that al-Azhar became
again the dominant religious institution in Egypt,
especially in the 18th century.

The graduates of al-Azhar were the most highly
educated in Egypt as that country began to con-
front the challenges of modernity in the 19th
century. Napoleon Bonaparte, during his brief con-
quest of Egypt (1798-1801), looked to the scholars
of al-Azhar as potential leaders in the Egypt he
intended to create, but the university was also the
site of much resistance to the French presence. As
Egypt was brought under the firm rule of Muham-
mad Ali (d. 1848), like Napoleon, it was to the
graduates of al-Azhar that he turned to find men
who would lead the country in its modernization.
Among those he sent to Europe in the 19th century
to acquire modern scientific learning, many were
Azharites. In fact, until the founding of the modern
University of Cairo in 1908, al-Azhar was the only
institution of higher learning in the country.

Because al-Azhar combined a great deal of
religious prestige with a formidable, if traditional,
academic program, successive governments have
striven to reduce its power or to turn its power to
their own ends. The religious endowments that
had made al-Azhar financially independent have
been under governmental control since 1812. The
state also controls the appointment of the rector
of the university, a powerful and influential posi-
tion in Egypt. In the 1960s, the Egyptian national
government under President Jamal Abd al-Nasir
(r. 1954-70) reformed and modernized the edu-
cational program, expanding its teaching to such
lields as engineering and medicine. While this
broadened and expanded the university, it also had
the effect of weakening its religious character.

Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

Nonetheless, al-Azhar, which is not a strictly
hierarchical institution, retains a certain tradition
of independence from the government and can
influence government decisions in some areas.
The government of Egypt has, thus, recently
granted al-Azhar an expanded role in the censor-
ship of films and books. More problematic for the
government, however, arc the independent schol-
ars within the institution who condemn specific
government policies, such as Egypt's peace with
Israel or the United States. On the whole, how-
ever, the government-appointed rector and his
associates tend to have national and international
prestige, and when they speak for al-Azhar, they
often claim to be speaking for the Muslim com-
munity as a whole.

See also education; Sunnism.

John Iskander

Further reading: Chris Eccel, Egypt, Islam, and Social
Change: Al-Azhar in Conflict and Accommodation (Ber-
lin: K. Schwarz, 1984); Tamir Moustafa, “Conflict and
Cooperation between the State and Religious Institu-
tions in Contemporary Egypt." International Journal of
Middle East Studies 32 (2000): 3-22.

Baath Party

The Baath Party has been the ruling political
party in Syria since 1963, and it was the party
that governed Iraq briefly in 1963 and then again
from 1968 until its removal by U.S. and coalition
forces in spring 2003. Two Syrian schoolteachers
who had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris during
the 1920s founded it in the 1940s: Michel Aflaq
(1910-89), a Greek Orthodox Christian, and
Salah al-Din al-Bitar (1912-80), a Sunni Muslim.
These men envisioned the Baath Party as a mod-
ern revolutionary movement that would unite
Arabs and liberate their lands from British and
French colonial control, which had become more
entrenched in the region as a result of the creation
of their mandate territories in Syria, Transjordan,
and Iraq after World War 1. The Baath message of
pan-Arab unity held great appeal to the peoples
living in these territories in the 1940s, and by the
1960s, the party had become the major player in
Syrian and Iraqi politics.

The name of the Baath Party, officially known
as the Arab Socialist Baath Party, is based on the
Arabic word for resurrection or renewal. The
name refers to the rebirth of the glories of Arab
self-rule that the party has sought to bring about
after centuries of being governed by foreigners,
especially Turks and Europeans. The party rec-

ognizes Islam as the authentic spiritual force that
can make this happen but not as the source for
specific institutions, laws, and policies. Muham-
mad is looked to as an exemplary Arab leader, not
as an object of religious devotion. In other words,
Baathists conceive of religion in secular terms, not
as a system of eternal truths to be used in actu-
ally running a government or drafting legislation.
In fact, however, party ideology has drawn more
upon elements of European fascism and commu-
nism than upon Islamic ideals and values. This
SECULARISM is reflected in the party's official motto:
“Unity, Freedom, and Arab Socialism."

In the party's early years, it sought to create a
base of support among the Arab masses. Failing in
this, the party allied itself with the military in the
1960s and built hierarchical networks of politi-
cal and security units that infiltrated all levels
of society down to the neighborhood and tribal
levels in the 1970s. In Iraq, the size of the army
was increased until it became one of the largest in
the region. In 1966, the Syrian and Iraqi branches
of the party divorced, and control of both fell
into the hands of local ethnoreligious minori-
ties — Alawi Shia in Syria, led by Hafiz al-Asad
(1930-2000), and Arab Sunnis from Tikrit in
Iraq, led by Saddam Husayn (1937-2006). These
two authoritarian rulers used their large security

81

82 Babism

forces to coerce and brutalize their real or imag-
ined opponents and to monopolize power in their
respective countries. This led to the massacre of
thousands of members of the Muslim Brother-
hood in Syria during the 1980s. In Iraq, tens of
thousands of communists, Kurds, Shiis, and oth-
ers considered disloyal by the Baathists fell victim
to the state terror apparatus during Husayns long
rule. At the same time, the party leadership pro-
moted the modernization of schools, agriculture,
industries, health care, and the national infra-
structure through investment of public funds and
limited privatization. Syria's involvement in the
Arab-Israeli conflicts and Iraq's involvement in
wars with Iran, Kuwait, and Western powers in
the 1980s and 1990s had disastrous consequences
for both countries, especially Iraq. Although the
Iraqi branch of the party was officially disbanded
after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, it is thought
that many former Baath members, together with
former Iraqi soldiers, have played a leading role in
the Iraqi insurgency against American forces and
any Iraqis who cooperate with them. They have
formed a loose alliance with Muslim guerrilla
forces in this context.

Further reading: Eberhard Kienle, Baath v. Baath: The
Conflict between Syria and Iraq, 1 968-1 989 (London: I.B.
Tauris & Co., 1990); Kanan Makiya (Samir al-Khalil),
Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam's Iraq (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1990); Marion Farouq-Sluglett
and Peter Sluglett, Iraq since 1958: From Revolution to
Dictatorship (London: LB. Tauris & Co., 2001).

Babism

Babism was a 19th-century Shii messianic move-
ment based in Iraq and Iran that announced the
immanent return of the Hidden Imam, a redeemer
sent by God, and thereby challenged the legitimacy
of powerful religious and political authorities at the
time. As a result, it was violently suppressed, but
it gave birth to a new movement, which became
the Bahai Faith. The name Babism (Babiyya) was

based on the Arabic word bab, ‘'gate*' or “door,”
indicating a living man inspired by God who pro-
vides access to the Hidden Imam.

Ali Muhammad (1819-50), a young mer-
chant from Shiraz, Iran, launched the movement.
As a student pilgrim at the Shii holy cities of
Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, he was attracted to
the Shaykhis, a Shii sect that had arisen earlier in
the century. After returning to Shiraz, he gained a
following of disciples, and in 1844, he proclaimed
that he was the bab, offering as proof an inspired
interpretation of a chapter in the Quran (Q 12).
He sent his followers throughout Iran and Iraq
to win converts, one of whom was Mirza Husayn
Ali Nuri (1817-92), who would later be known
as Baha Ullah, the founder of the Bahai Faith. Ali
Muhammad's growing popularity and criticism of
the AUTHORITY of the traditional Shii ULAMA soon
caused them to look at him with disfavor, and
he was imprisoned in a remote mountain fortress
in Azerbaijan in 1847. He wrote many religious
tracts in his prison cell, the most famous of which
was the Bayan (exposition), which claimed to be a
holy book with a new universal law that replaced
other religious laws, including the sharia. Some
followers regarded him as a new prophet, and at
the end of his life, before being executed for apos-
tasy in 1850, he proclaimed that he was the Qaim
(one who will arise) — the Hidden Imam himself.

Babi leaders, including an influential woman
named Qurrat al-Ayn (d. 1852), decided to break
the movement's ties with the Islamic religion and
lead a revolt against authorities in northern Iran.
Thousands of Babis were reported to have died at
the hands of government troops, especially after a
failed assassination attempt against Nasir al-Din
Shah (d. 1896), the ruler of Iran, in 1852. Most
of the movement's survivors turned to the religion
of Baha Ullah (the Bahai Faith) in 1863, but oth-
ers stayed loyal to Ali Muhammad's designated
heir, Mirza Yahya (or Subh-i Azal, d. 1912), and
this group of Babis became known as Azalis. Azali
Babism survived a period of exile in Iraq and Tur-
key, and its adherents participated in the Iranian

Baghdad 83

Constitutional Revolution of 1906. A very small
number of Babis survive today in the Central Asian
republic of Uzbekistan.

See also imam; Mahdi; Shiism.

Further reading: Abbas A manat, Resurrection and
Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989); Denis
MacEoin, Rituals in Babism and Bahaism (London: Brit-
ish Academic Press, 1994).

al-Badawi, Ahmad (ca. 1200-1276) one of
the most popular Sufi saints in Egypt; honored every
year by two commemorative festivals
According to reverential accounts of his life,
Ahmad al-Badawi (the Bedouin) was born to a
family in Fez, Morocco, that traced its ancestry
back to the ahl al-bayt, Muhammad's family. This
is why many Egyptians call him al-SAYYlD (master),
which implies descent from the Prophet. Legends
portray him in two different ways in his youth: as
a saintly child who memorized the entire Quran
and studied Islamic law and as a noble Bedouin
horseman. Together with his parents, he traveled
on pilgrimage from Morocco to Mecca. After
being instructed by a mysterious voice, he went
to Iraq with his brother to visit the tombs of two
leading Sufi saints, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d.
1166) and Ahmad al-Rifai (d. 1182). On his way
back to Mecca, according to legend, he defeated
a beautiful genie and her demon army and con-
verted her into a pious devotee, thus demonstrat-
ing his superior saintly power. While he was in
Mecca in 1238, a voice once again spoke to him
while praying in a cave as Muhammad used to
do. This time the voice told him to go to the delta
town of Tanta, Egypt, where he resided for the
rest of his life, claiming to receive guidance from
Muhammad himself. In Tanta, Ahmad al-Badawi
surpassed all other rivals in his acts of asceticism
and demonstrations of his BARAKA (saintly power).
Egypt's rulers honored him, and it is even said that
he battled Christian crusaders. After his death in

1276, his followers organized themselves into a
Sufi brotherhood known as the Ahmadiyya, one
of the largest in Egypt today, and they converted
his tomb into a shrine. He is considered to be one
of the four primary holy men (cjutb s) of Egypt,
and he has been the subject of Egyptian folktales,
novels, and television dramas.

Every year millions flock to his shrine to par-
ticipate in his mulids (commemorative festivals).
Prior to the modern period, the main festival
was in August, at the height of the Nile flood
season. Now that dams and levees have ended
the annual inundation, it is in October, at the
end of the harvest season. The second festival is
held in the spring. Sufi brotherhoods gather in
Tanta to perform their dhihrs (religious chants)
and other rituals, while ordinary pilgrims come
to seek his blessing to cure an illness, become
successful in school or business, gain debt relief,
or satisfy some other personal need. Many have
their sons circumcised in booths near the Ahmadi
Mosque hoping to alleviate the danger of infec-
tion. Visitors return home with mementos of their
pilgrimage, such as trinkets, sweets flavored with
rosewater, and chickpeas. These arc distributed to
friends and relatives in the belief that they contain
some of Sayyid Ahmad's baraka. The Egyptian
government closely regulates the shrine and its
festivals, and despite the saints widespread popu-
larity, reform-minded and conservative Muslims
condemn the mulids and the practices associated
with them because they think it is BIDAA, a corrup-
tion of what they believe is the true Islam.

See also circumcision; crusades.

Further reading: Edward B. Reeves, The Hidden Govern-
ment: Ritual, Clientelism, and Legitimation in Northern
Egypt (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990).

Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, is situated on the
Tigris River near the Euphrates River in the center
of a region that used to be known as Mesopotamia,

84 Baghdad

the site of Babylon and other ancient cities. It has
a population of approximately 5 million people
in a country composed of 28 million. Most of the
city's residents are Arab Muslims, but it is also
home to small numbers of other Iraqi ethnic and
religious groups: Kurdish Muslims, Turkomans,
Arab Christians (including Assyrians and Chal-
deans), Mandeans, and Jews. There are at least 2
million Shii Muslims living there, many in Sadr
City, a low-income neighborhood on Baghdad's
northeastern perimeter.

According to early Muslim histories, in 762
Abu Jafar al-Mansur, the second caliph of the
Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258), traced the founda-
tions of the city of Baghdad with flaming cotton
seeds and eventually built, through the labor of
100,000 builders, architects and engineers from
around the empire, a perfectly round city, a form
unprecedented in Islamicatc architecture. This
new capital, called the Madinat al-Salam (City of
Peace), housed within its three concentric circles
of baked brick walls the caliph, his court, soldiers,
citizens and markets. Within a decade, the grow-
ing population and its palaces and markets had
spilled outside the original walls, and the legend-
ary city of gardens, canals, and floating pontoon
bridges rapidly became the cultural and religious
center of Islamdom. The medieval city boasted
a host of famous personages in Islamic history.
Harun al-Rashid (r. 786-809), a figure made
famous by the Arabian Nights , and his son Abu al-
Abbas Abd Allah al-Mamun (r. 813-833), helped
build a thriving intellectual center where scholars
gathered from around the world in a library called
the House of Wisdom. There, in addition to the
development of the sciences such as engineer-
ing, mathematics, and astronomy, foreign works
of philosophy and literature were translated into
Arabic. The Nizamiyya madrasa at its height had
a population of 10,000 to 20,000 students seeking
higher education from noted scholars, jurists, and
philosophers, including Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
(d. 1111), who, before retiring into a mystical life
and writing his famous The Revival oj the Religious

Sciences , was the principal of that school. The old-
est, most liberal, and currently largest of the four
Islamic law schools, the Hanafi Legal School,
was founded in Baghdad by Abu Hanifa (d. 767).

Beginning as early as the ninth century, a scries
of citywide upheavals, political and religious
power struggles, floods, and plagues left the city
vulnerable to the Mongol attack of 1258, which
decimated much of the population and urban
infrastructure. The 14th through the early 20th
centuries were punctuated by foreign occupations
and leadership changes, most notably by the Safa-
vids (1507 and 1623), the Ottomans (1534 and
1638), and finally the British in 1917.

In 1932, Iraq gained its independence, and
the University of Baghdad, one of three modern
universities in Baghdad, opened in 1957. During
the 1970s and 1980s, oil revenues were allocated
to a building campaign of new city monuments,
palaces, and ceremonial avenues. Three of the
most noted monuments are the Hands of Victory
arch, the Monument of the Unknown Soldier,
and the Martyrs Monument, with its split tur-
quoise dome 190 meters in diameter that recalls
the famous green dome that once towered over
al-Mansur's original city. All three were designed
to commemorate the country's war against Iran
(1980-88) and the Iraqi soldiers who died in
it. For more than three decades, Baghdad also
served as the headquarters for the Arab Baath
Socialist Party, which governed the country until
it was overthrown when the United States and its
coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003. The
Republican Palace of the deposed Iraqi leader,
Saddam Husayn (r. 1978-2003), which stands on
the west bank of the Tigris not far from where
Mansur's round city once stood, now serves as the
headquarters of the American occupation.

See also Baath Party.

Margaret A. Leeming

Further reading: Jacob Lassner. The Shaping of Abba-
sid Rule (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

Bahai Faith 85

1980); Kanan Makiya [Samir al-Khalil], The Monument:
Art, Vulgarity and Responsibility in Iraq (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1991); Paul Wheatley, The
Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands,
Seventh through the Tenth Centuries (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2001).

Bahai Faith

The Bahai Faith is a new religion that grew out
of the Shii environment in Iran in the mid- 19th
century. It presents itself as a new universal FAITH
that believes in world peace, religious tolerance,
and unity and equality among all people. It has its
own scriptures in Persian and Arabic, but it also
recognizes the fundamental truths expressed in
the sacred writings of other religions. There arc
currently about 6.8 million Bahais, or followers
of this religion, of whom about 300,000 still live
in Iran. In that country, they have been treated
as apostates and subjected to persecution, espe-
cially since the creation of the Islamic Republic
in 1979.

The founder and prophet of the Bahai Faith
was Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri (1817-93), who took
the surname Baha Allah, “splendor of God," from
which the religion gets its name. Baha Allah (or
Baha Ullah) was born to an influential family in
Tehran, the capital of Iran, and joined the Babi
movement with his half-brother Mirza Yahya in
the 1840s. Babism was a radical Shii sect that chal-
lenged religious and political authorities in Iran
and Iraq and preached the coming of the Hidden
Imam, who would initiate a golden age with a new
universal religious law that was to surpass the
SHARIA. The Babis were violently suppressed as
heretical by the Iranian government with the back-
ing of the Shii ulama, and Baha Allah and other
surviving Babis were forced into exile in Baghdad,
Iraq, in 1853. In 1863, he announced to associates
that he, Baha Allah, was the awaited imam of the
Babis. The majority of Babis who followed him
became the Bahais; those who did not but con-
tinued to follow his brother Mirza Yahya (known

as Subh-i Azal) became the Azalis. In 1867, after
being forced to move to Ottoman Turkey, Baha
Allah publicly proclaimed his divine mission by
sending letters to many of the worlds leaders,
thus formally renouncing Islam and launching
the Bahai Faith. Ottoman authorities, concerned
by the trouble he might cause with such claims,
imprisoned him near Akka, Palestine (now in
Israel), where he died in 1892. He was succeeded
by his son Abd al-Baha (d. 1921), a gifted leader
who helped both organize and internationalize the
religion after Baha Allas death. He won new con-
verts from Christianity in Europe and America,
where the Bahai Faith soon established branches.
The Bahais now have nearly 20,000 local spiritual
assemblies in some 233 countries.

Baha Allah's writings are the most important
sacred scriptures for the religion. They arc believed
to be divine revelations, replacing the Quran and
Islamic law. The most important of his books
are The Book of Certainty ( Kitab-i iqan ) and The
Most Holy Book ( al-Kitab al-aqdas). Both uphold
the idea of God's oneness as well as the values of
equality, social justice, learning, and the unity of
all people. Like Islam, there is no clergy in the
Bahai Faith, and all adherents arc expected to per-
form specific ritual obligations, which include an
annual fast, abstention from alcohol and nonmed-
icinal drugs, and daily prayers. Women hold equal
status with men, and, unlike Islam, marriage is
monogamous. Not unexpectedly, the Bahai Faith
has flourished in modern secular societies. On the
other hand, the persecution and discrimination
Bahais arc experiencing in Iran and other Muslim
countries is due partly to the fact that their reli-
gion is seen as apostasy by Muslim authorities and
also because it is thought to be too much under
the influence of Western countries and Israel,
where its main religious center is now located.

See also Shiism.

Further reading: Mojan Momen, The Bahai Faith: A
Short Introduction (Oxford. U.K.: Oneworld Publica-
tions, 1999); Peter Smith. The Babi and Bahai Religions:

86 Bahrain

From Messianic Shiism to a World Religion (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Bahrain See Gulf states.

Bamba, Ahmadu (Ahmad Bamba) (1850-
1 927) Senegalese mystic and founder of the
Muridiyya Sufi order

Ahmadu Bamba (also known as Ahmad Bamba)
was born to a family of scholars in Kayor, Sen-
egal, in West Africa. He became a devotee of
the Qadiri Sufi Order, which he taught among
his native Wolof people. French colonial officials
grew alarmed over increasing support for Bamba’s
teaching and sent him into exile in Gabon in 1895.
Although they allowed him to return to Senegal in
1902, Bamba was exiled again later that year, this
time to Mauritania. French authorities hoped that
removing Bamba would limit his popularity, which
they perceived as a threat to their colonial interests
despite the nonpolitical nature of his teaching.
Instead, Bamba’s support only continued to grow,
and he was able to establish his own distinctive
PRAYER ritual (wire!) and Sufi order while in Mauri-
tania. Upon returning to Senegal in 1912, Bamba
made his home in Diourbel. During World War 1,
he reluctantly supported the French with troops
and money. However, after his death in 1927, his
tomb was moved to Touba, a city he founded in
1887 and that remains the main pilgrimage site
and hub of the Muridiyya Sufi Order.

Bamba established the Muridiyya as an eco-
nomic and religious community during the 1880s,
developed a new Islamic pedagogy that empha-
sized action, work, and loyalty, and attracted
followers from many different backgrounds. The
Muridiyya work ethic has made the order an
important contributor to the Senegalese economy
during the past century.

See also colonialism.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: Lucy C. Creevey, “Ahmad Bamba
1850-1927." In Studies in West African Islamic History.
Vol. 1, The Cultivators of Islam , edited by John Ralph
Willis (London: Frank Cass, 1979); Donald B. Cruise
O'Brien, The M ourides of Senegal: The Political and Eco-
nomic Organization of an Islamic Brotherhood (Oxford,
U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971).

Bangladesh (Official name: People’s
Republic of Bangladesh)

Bangladesh (Hindi: land of the Bengalis) is a
country in South Asia bordered by India on all
sides but the extreme southeast, where it shares
a border with Myanmar (Burma). Situated at the
northern end of the Bay of Bengal, it straddles the
delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna
Rivers, which leaves much of the country subject
to destructive annual floods. The population is
estimated to be 154 million, of whom about 83
percent arc Muslim and 16 percent are Hindu.
This makes it the fourth largest Muslim country
in the world, after Indonesia, Pakistan, and India.
Even though Bangladesh's official state religion is
Islam, it is also the Muslim country with the largest
Hindu minority population. Most of the Muslims
are Sunnis who follow the Hanafi Legal School.
Two major Muslim social classes can be differ-
entiated: the nobles (ashraf) who migrated from
northern India (especially from nearby Bihar) and
use the Urdu language to set themselves apart,
and the commoners ( ajlaf) who belong to the
indigenous Bengali population. Most of the Hin-
dus arc affiliated with the Scheduled Castes, for-
merly called Untouchables or Harijans (children
of God). Many Bengali Hindus, especially those
belonging to the upper castes, migrated to India
after the 1947 partition, and they now reside in
the Indian state of West Bengal.

Bangladesh is part of what had formerly been
the northeast Indian province of Bengal. For
much of its history, this had been a densely for-
ested frontier region that fell beyond the reach
of direct Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim rule. In

Bangladesh 87

eastern Bengal, people lived mostly in small hunt-
ing and gathering communities and adhered to
local tribal religions. In the western region, small
states rose and fell, the most important being the
Pala dynasty (ca. 750-1159), which subscribed to
Buddhism, and the Sena dynasty (ca. 1095-1223),
which followed Brahmanic Hinduism. The first
Muslims in Bengal were Afghanis, Persians, and
Turks who came into the area as conquerors dur-
ing the reign of the Delhi Sultanate (1206-87).
Local Muslim states arose subsequently in the
western part of Bengal, but full-fledged Islamiza-
tion did not begin until the Mughal dynasty won
control of the region during the reign of Akbar (r.
1556-1605).

Conversion of the Bengali populations to Islam
did not occur by the sword, as has been alleged.
Historian Richard Eaton argues that Mughal elites
in Bengal (the ashraf) did not promote Islam as a
state religion; they maintained a social and cultural
distance from the native population. Widespread
conversion in Bengal began only in the 17th cen-
tury as a result of several factors: 1) the gradual
eastward shift of the Ganges River, which opened
up forest lands to the outside world and to intense
agricultural development, 2) the influx of pioneer
holy men who built mosques and shrines that
formed the nuclei of hundreds of new agricultural
communities and spread Islamic influence to the
indigenous peoples, and 3) economic prosperity
under Muslim rule brought about by the region's
integration into the world economy through
the export of textiles. These socioeconomic and
cultural factors not only resulted in religious
conversion in a region where the Hindu religion
had also only recently been introduced, but they
also gave Bengali Islam a distinctive stamp. Hindu
gods and scriptures were not rejected but adapted
to Islamic understandings of God, the prophets,
and their holy books. At the same time, Islamic
doctrines and practices were recast into Hindu
forms. The divine name Allah, for example, was
used interchangeably in Bengali Islamic literature
with the Sanskrit terms for Hindu gods, such as

Great Person (Pradhanpurusha), the One With-
out Color (Niranjan), and God (Ishvar). The
prophets, particularly Muhammad, were called
avatars , a Sanskrit designation for the Hindu god
Vishnu's different manifestations. Bengal Muslims
were also familiar with the popular Hindu epics
the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Amalgama-
tions of Islamic with Hindu beliefs and practices
cut across communal boundaries and produced a
distinctive Bengali religious literature as well as
devotional movements such as that of Satya Pir,
who was venerated as a Sufi saint by Muslims and
as a god by Hindus. Sufi orders and the venera-
tion of Muslim saints at their shrines continue to
play an important role in the popular religion of
Bengal today.

While Mughal officials struggled to solidify
their control of Bengal by forming an Urdu-speak-
ing elite oriented westward to the imperial courts
in Delhi, Agra, and Lahore, and as more and more
Bengalis became Muslims, Europeans appeared
on the scene to compete for access to the regions
economic wealth. The Portuguese appeared first
in 1517, followed by the Dutch in 1602, the Brit-
ish in 1650, the French in 1690, and the Danes in
1755. It was the British, however, who prevailed,
ruling Bengal first through the agency of the
English East India Company (1757-1857) then
directly through the British Crown in the era of
the Raj (1857-1947).

Foreign colonial presence gave rise to two
important kinds of movements in Bengal: reli-
gious revival movements among both Hindus and
Muslims and anticolonial nationalist movements.
The two major religious revival movements among
Muslims were the Faraizi movement, which advo-
cated strict adherence to the Five Pillars ol Islam,
and the Tariqa-i Muhammadiyya (Muhammadan
Movement) inspired by Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (d.
1831), which sought to establish a community
governed by the sharia. Both of these 19th cen-
tury movements were reacting to the decline of
Muslim influence, which they hoped to reverse
by purifying Islam of what they perceived to be

88 Banna, Hassan al-

wrongful practices and Hindu influences. They
also were opposed to British rule. Even though
they were short-lived, in the long run these move-
ments helped set the foundations for the Muslim
nationalist movement of the 20th century, which
had broad appeal across all strata of Bengali soci-
ety. Bengalis were active in the All-India Muslim
League, a political party formed to give Indian
Muslims a greater voice in their own affairs. Its
first meeting was convened in 1906 in Dhaka, the
capital of Bengal. However, Urdu speakers from
northern India and the Punjab dominated the
Muslim League, thus marginalizing the Bengalis.

After India was partitioned in 1947, Bengal
was reconstituted as the East Bengal Province of
Pakistan, under the governance of West Pakistan,
which was located more than 1,000 miles away,
across northern India. The secularist Awami League
political party was created to give voice to East Ben-
gal’s grievances against West Pakistan. In the fol-
lowing years, the league gained widespread support
among Bengali Hindus as well as Muslims, advo-
cating a more democratic government and more
power at the local level. After the league scored an
overwhelming victory in the 1970 national elec-
tions, East Pakistan (the official name of East Ben-
gal since 1955) declared independence from West
Pakistan, which caused the central government
to invade the country' to end the Bengali revolt.
Hundreds of thousands were killed as a result, but
Indian troops joined with the Bengalis to defeat the
Pakistani forces. East Pakistan was then renamed
Bangladesh, and the Awami League led the country
with its socialist development policies until it was
removed by a military coup in 1975. Since 1978,
the country's political life has been dominated by
the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded
by General Ziaur Rahman, who served as president
from 1976 to 1981. Today the Awami League is the
main opposition party in the country. Despite the
growing influence of the Islamist party, the Jamaat-i
Islami, Bangladesh still considers itself to be a mod-
erate, democratic country. One reflection of this is
in roles women have played in public life there.

including Khaleda Zia (Ziaur Rahmans widow),
Bangladesh's prime minister from 1991 to 1996;
and Sheikh Hasina (Mujibur Rahman's daughter),
head of the Awami League and prime minister from
1996 to 2001, and from 2009 to the present.

See also colonialism; Hinduism and Islam.

Further reading: Craig Baxter, Bangladesh: From a
Nation to a State (Boulder, Colo.: Westvicw Press,
1997); Richard M. Eaton, “Who Are the Bengal Mus-
lims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal." In
Understanding the Bengal Muslims: Interpretative Essays ,
edited by Rafiuddin Ahmed, 25-51 (Oxford and Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2001); Asim Roy, The Islamic
Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 1983); Tony K. Stewart, “Satya Pir:
Muslim Holy Man and Hindu God." In Religions of India
in Practice , edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., 578-597
(Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).

Banna, Hassan al- (1906-1949) Egyptian
founder and intellectual leader of the Society of
Muslim Brothers

Born in Mahmudiyya, Egypt, al-Banna was greatly
influenced by his father, an al-Azhar graduate who
served as the village imam and religious instructor.
Al-Banna exhibited a propensity toward religious
activism at an early age, joining several organiza-
tions that fought against British colonial influ-
ence and “un-Islamic" trends in Egypt. Following
primary school, he completed teacher training at
Damanhur and then Dar al-Ulum in Cairo, after
which (in 1927) he accepted a teaching position
in Ismailiyya, a city in the Suez Canal Zone with a
heavy British presence. His passionate interest in
religious and social affairs quickly drew the atten-
tion of a group of disaffected locals who appealed
to him to become their leader, and the result, in
1928, was the founding of the Society of Muslim
Brothers, also known as the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 1932, al-Banna transferred to Cairo, where he
established a branch of the society and began to
expand its purpose and structure, positioning it to

baqa and fana 89

become ihe premier Islamist organization in the
Muslim world.

From the outset, al-Banna viewed the society
as a broad-based movement, encompassing intel-
lectual, moral, and practical goals. Unlike earlier
reformers, such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d.
1897) and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905), who had
provided the intellectual Islamic legitimacy for
accommodating the changes brought about by
contacts with the West, al-Banna wanted to create
an Islamic order ( nizam islami) that encouraged
modern Muslims to live according to what he
deemed to be their tradition. And, for al-Banna,
there was a desperate need for such an order
because Egyptians, along with other Muslim peo-
ples, had adopted the secular ways of their colonial
occupiers and subsequently lost their identity. The
society, under al-Banna’s direction, operated on a
grassroots level — through the founding of schools,
clinics, factories, and publishing houses — to dem-
onstrate the strength of the Islamic alternative to
a people who had become enamored with Western
nationalist ideologies, such as communism, capi-
talism, and liberal democracy

Political conflict, and occasionally political
violence, was the order of the day in Egypt
throughout the 1930s and 1940s, as nationalist
movements fought for independence from the
British and vied for power among themselves. The
society played an important role in the proinde-
pendence fight, and al-Banna participated in the
political process, even running for election once.
In the end, however, the society's Islamic agenda
put the organization on a collision course with
Egypt's more secular establishment, including
government authorities. Implicated in the murder
of several government officials, the society was
dissolved in late 1948, and, in what most observ-
ers regard as an act of government retribution,
al-Banna himself was assassinated in February
1949.

Al-Bannas legacy within the Islamist move-
ment in Egypt and the Muslim world is that of
father of the movement and martyr to the cause.

His life story exemplifies the Islamist struggle to
establish an authentic Muslim society, ruled by
and for Islam, a struggle that continues to this
day.

See also Islamism; politics and Islam; renewal
AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Jeffrey T. Kenney

Further reading: Richard P. Mitchell, The Society
of the Muslim Brothers (London: Oxford University
Press, 1969); M. N. Shaikh, trans., Memoirs of Hasan
Al Banna Shaheed (Karachi: International Islamic Pub-
lishers, 1981); Charles Wendell, trans., Five Tracts of
Hasan al-Banna' (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1978).

baqa and fana (Arabic: abiding and
annihilation)

Baqa and fana are key concepts in Sufism. They
arc employed by Sufis in their discussions about
mystical experience and union with God. At issue
is whether any aspect of a mystics individual-
ity (or selfhood) really remains or abides (haqa)
when mystical union or annihilation (fana) is
experienced, and whether true self-annihilation
can really be attained. A common teaching story
used in connection with this subject is that of the
moth that is drawn to the light of a candle only
to perish in the flame: Does the moth completely
perish, or does something of the moth continue to
exist in a transformed state after it is consumed by
the flame? The roots of such discussions are based
partly in human speculation about life (existence)
and death (the end of existence; nonexistence).
When people are born into the world, are they
born into true life? When they die, does life truly
come to an end? Pre-Islamic Neoplatonic think-
ers in the Middle East, among whom were many
Christian mystics, identified the living God with
true existence and viewed worldly existence as a
kind of nonexistence. Therefore, for a Sufi influ-
enced by Neoplatonism, to be truly alive meant

90 baqa and fana

finding a way out of this corrupt world, which
he considered to be a kind of death or prison,
and returning to a mystical union with God, the
source of life. Sufis heeded a saying of Muhammad,
which stated “Die before you die." For them, this
meant not that they should physically die, but that
they should strive to purify themselves of worldly
existence so that all that remains is God. Some
Sufis maintained that the attributes of the indi-
vidual are thereby replaced by those of God. Such
discussions about baqa and fana also addressed
questions concerning the relation between body
and soul and whether the soul was divine and
immortal.

Formal Islamic doctrine has tended to affirm
life in this world as a gift from God and to
anticipate an AFTERLIFE of immortal existence in
paradise or hell, based on a final judgment of ones
beliefs and actions. However, Neoplatonic ideas
surfaced early in the history of the Muslim com-
munity. The Quran itself emphasizes the distinc-
tion between the transitory nature of life in this
world ( al-dunya ) and eternal life in the hereafter
( al-akhira ), which is qualitatively better. More-
over, an oft-quoted passage in the Quran states,
“Everything on [the Earth) is transitory; all that
subsists is the face of your lord (God), the one of
majesty and generosity" (Q 55:26-27). This state-
ment implies that life is fleeting and that only God
subsists permanently.

In the ninth century, as Neoplatonism became
more influential among Muslim intellectuals, Sufis
promoted the idea of the relationship between
baqa and fana as states of mind or consciousness
that were not limited to physical life and death.
The first Sufi to be credited with developing such
a doctrine was Abu Said al-Kharraz of Baghdad
(d. 899). He taught that baqa meant abiding in
the contemplation of Gods divinity, thus stressing
the difference between the mystic and God, while
fana meant the annihilation of ones awareness
of being an imperfect human. Al-Hujwiri (d. ca.
1077), a Persian mystic, went further to say that
annihilation comes by way of a vision of Gods

majesty, which so overwhelms the visionary that
he becomes "dead to reason and passion alike,
dead even to annihilation itself" (al-Hujwiri, 246).
This line of thought characterizes the attitude of
al-Junayt) (d. 910) of Baghdad and other "sober”
Sufis toward mystical experience. They believed
that the mystic continued to experience a perfected
awareness of the self after annihilation in God.

Others, known as the “intoxicated" Sufis,
took a different tack. They maintained that the
mystic could completely shed his or her human
attributes by following the mystical path and
ultimately achieve ecstatic union with God. Abu
Yazid al-Bistami (d. ca. 875) and Mansur al-Hal-
laj (d. 922) were important Sufi visionaries who
were included in this group. Al-Hallaj was also
credited with introducing the idea that the mysti-
cal quest was comparable to that of the lover seek-
ing union with his or her Beloved (God), a theme
that lies at the heart of the rich poetic traditions
associated with Sufism.

One of the most beautiful expressions of a
sober Sufi understanding of the relation between
baqa and fana occurs in Farid al-Din Attar's Con-
ference of the Birds (composed ca. 1177). This
Persian poem tells the story of a flock of birds
who gave up their worldly attachments in order
to find Simurgh, their king. After traversing
seven valleys, each valley representing a different
spiritual station, they are finally admitted to the
inner chamber of Simurgh, where they discover
that they are identical to their king and surrender
themselves to annihilation, only to abide once
again in their individual selfhoods at the end
of their quest. In later Sufi thought, the way to
union with God required prior annihilation in the
Sufi master and Muhammad, both of whom were
believed to be reflections of Gods light.

See also Allah; hal; maqam; Persian language
and literature; tariqa; soul and spirit.

Further reading: Farid Ud-Din Attar, The Conference
of the Birds , trans. Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis
(New York: Penguin Books. 1984); Ali bin Uthman al-

bar aka 9 1

Hujwiri, The Kashf al-Mahjub: The Oldest Persian Trea-
tise on Sufism. Translated by R. A. Nicholson (Delhi: Taj
Company, 1997); R. A. Nicholson. The Mystics of Islam
(New York: Schocken, 1975); Anncmarie Schimmel,
Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1975).

Baqli, Ruzbihan (1128-1209) leading mystic
of 1 2th-century Iran, famed for his accounts of his
visionary experience and controversial ecstatic sayings
Ruzbihan Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Nasr al-Baqli
al-Fasawi was born in Fasaa, a province in the
south of Iran. When older, he moved to the
nearby city Shiraz, where he delivered sermons
at the town's famous old MOSQUE and enjoyed a
large following among the townfolk, as well as
some of the local rulers. In his autobiography,
Ruzbihan explains that his spirituality is unrelated
to his upbringing because he was born and raised
in a family that was ignorant about God and was
unable to understand him. He defines his call
to mysticism in terms of his special relationship
with God. Ruzbihan had spiritual experiences as
early as age three. At age 15, he was addressed by
voices from the unseen world ( ghayb ) calling him
a PROPHET. One day around this lime, as he was
leaving his shop for afternoon prayers, he heard
an extraordinary voice and followed it to a nearby
hill. There he saw a handsome shaykh telling him
about Gods oneness ( tawhid ). Ruzbihan describes
this event as a turning point in his spiritual awak-
ening. For the rest of his life, he experienced mys-
tical states, and secrets were disclosed to him.

Ruzbihan's writings are in Persian and in Ara-
bic. They describe the visionary events that consti-
tuted the life of the author and the knowledge that
he acquired by these events. Best known today
as the author of Abhar al-ashiqin (The jasmine of
lovers), Kashf al-asrar (The unveiling of secrets),
and Sharh-i shathiyat (An exegesis of ecstatic say-
ings), Ruzbihan also wrote on a range of subjects
including tafsir (interpretation), hadith, and fiqh
(Islamic jurisprudence).

Sharh-i shathiyat is a classical reference on
Islamic mysticism. It is a compilation of sayings
by entranced mystics as they were experiencing
spiritual states. Abhar al-ashiqin is a masterpiece
in Persian belles lettres. It provides a geography
of love whence God's attributes of “might" ( fatal )
and “beauty" ( jamal ) come into view. Ruzbihan's
autobiography, Kashf al-asrar ; which he began
writing at age 55, is a unique document in the
genre of Muslim autobiography. While similar to
many Muslim biographies and autobiographies,
Kashf al-asrar concerns the inner spiritual life of
the author/protagonist, but unlike most of them,
its plot is not centered on the external events that
advance the story of his life. In this respect, Kashf
al-asrar differs from the works that constitute the
canon in the medieval Islamic biographical and
autobiographical literature.

Today, Ruzbihan's shrine is a pilgrimage site in
his hometown, Shiraz.

See also Sufism.

Firoozeh Papan-Matin

Further reading: Ruzbihan Baqli, Abhar al-ashiqin, cds.
Henry Corbin and Muhammad Muin (Tehran: Ket-
abkhane-yc Manuchehri, 1987); Carl Ernst, Ruzbihan
Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian
Sufism (Richmond. Va.: Curzon Press, 1996).

baraka

Baraka is an Arabic term for blessing used by
peoples of the Middle East and followers of
Islam. It has been understood both as a specific
force that emanates from God and as a more
impersonal power that brings about prosperity
or good luck at the same time that it counteracts
evil forces. According to the Quran, baraka is a
power that God can both bestow and withhold, a
notion similar to that of berakhah in Judaism. If
people are mindful of God and do good things,
they qualify to receive divine blessing and pros-
perity; if not, they will not receive it. Prophets,

92 Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad

as God's agents, can also bestow blessings, as
Abraham and Moses do in the Quran. Like a kind
of electricity, it was thought to emanate primarily
from God to his creation through the Quran and
intermediary prophets and saints. Once Islam
became a fully institutionalized religion in the
ninth century with hierarchies of political and
religious power and AUTHORITY that involved rul-
ers, soldiers, ULAMA, administrators, commoners,
and slaves, then baraka itself was also thought of
as a sacred power that flowed from God through
a hierarchy of supermundane beings. Today the
ordinary person still has simply to hear or see
the Quran to benefit from its baraka. It can also
be obtained by touching a saint, a saint's relic,
or even a person who has visited the Kaaba, a
shrine, or similar holy place. Indeed, obtaining
baraka is one of the main reasons people perform
pilgrimages.

As an impersonal force, baraka is supposed
to be present in certain stones, trees, natural
springs, or manufactured objects — especially in
pre-Islamic cultures, among the Bedouin, and in
rural populations. Egyptian peasants still believe
that the antiquities of the ancient Egyptians have
this power, and they take scrapings from the
pyramids and temples to place in amulets or to
mix into a potion with other substances to cure
a disease. The idea of blessing also has become
diffused in the everyday speech of Muslims and
non-Muslims in the Middle East, who use words
derived from the Arabic word baraka to wish
each other a happy holiday and to congratulate
someone upon marriage or some other success
in life.

See also Egypt; miracle; wali; ziyara.

Further reading: Michael Gilscnan. Recognizing Islam:
Religion and Society in the Modern Arab World (New
York: Random House. 1982); Edward Reeves. The Hid-
den Government: Ritual, Clientelism, and Legitimation
in Northern Egypt (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 1990); Edward Westermarck, Ritual and Belief in
Morocco. 2 vols. (New York: University Books, 1968).

Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad (Bareilly,

Brelwi) (1 786-1 831 ) militant religious revivalist
leader in North India

Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi was born to a prominent
family of sayy/ds (descendants of Muhammad) in
Awadh province in northern India. After moving
to Delhi, where he studied with the son of the
Muslim reformer Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762), he
served in the cavalry of a Muslim ruler in central
India for seven years (1811-18). In 1822, Sayyid
Ahmad went on the hajj to Mecca. When he
returned to India, he combined reformist Islamic
ideas with his military experience to launch a
movement that quickly migrated from Delhi to
Bengal and ultimately to Afghanistan, Kashmir,
and the Punjab in northwest India.

At a time when the Mughal Empire was in
its death throes, Sayyid Ahmad and his disciples
sought to bring Muslims back to what he thought
was the true Islam and lead them to greatness
by way of a jihad against the British, who were
becoming more and more powerful at this time. In
his teachings, he called upon Muslims to give up
un-Islamic idolatrous practices and return to the
simple monotheism of the Quran and Muham-
mad. He condemned Muslim participation in
Hindu social and religious practices, worship at
saint shrines, and Shii veneration of the imams.
He and his followers thought of themselves as
following the path of the first Muslims under
Muhammad's leadership, and many believed that
Sayyid Ahmad was the “renewer" ( mujaddid )
of the age. Some even considered him to be the
awaited Mahdi (Muslim messiah). Sayyid Ahmad's
opponents labeled him a “Wahhabi," a follower of
the puritanical Saudi form of Islam, but he did not
consider himself as such. He was more a follower
of the teachings of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi than
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), the
founder of the so-called Wahhabi movement in
Arabia during the 18th century.

Sayyid Ahmad decided to mount his jihad
against the British from a base in northwest India.
In 1826, after gathering recruits from the region

Basmachi 93

of what is now Afghanistan and Baluchistan, he
set out for the Punjab, where the population was
a mixture of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. There
he attempted to displace the local Sikh governor,
Sher Singh (d. 1843), and after several battles and
skirmishes he was killed at Balakot (near Kash-
mir) in 1831. His movement was put into disarray,
but it reorganized itself and became a nonjihadist
reform movement known as the Path of Muham-
mad, based in Patna. Sayyid Ahmad is still remem-
bered by many Pakistani and Indian Muslims as a
martyr (shahid), and his shrine still stands in the
town of Balakot, Pakistan, along with memorials
to those who died in battle with him.

The movement launched by Sayyid Ahmad
in the early 19th century is distinct from a
movement the emerged later in the 1880s called
the Barelwi Movement, under the leadership of
Ahmad Riza Khan (1856-1921) of Barelwi, a
scholar of the sharia. Members of this movement
strongly believed that they were the Indian heirs
of Muhammad and his companions in Medina,
and they opposed the reformist ideas of SAYYID
Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) and Abu al-Kalam Azad
(d. 1958). Instead they espoused a combination of
Sufi devotionalism and pilgrimage to saint shrines
with a reformist attitude toward the sharia. Their
understanding of Islam was also at odds with that
of Sayyid Ahmads “Wahhabi** movement and the
conservative school based in Deoband. Although
the Barelwi Movement began in rural areas, it has
since gained a strong following among educated
Muslims in urban areas of India and Pakistan.

See also Hinduism and Islam; Mughal dynasty;

RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS; WAHHABISM.

Further reading: Mohiuddin Ahmad. Saiyid Ahmad Sha-
hid: His Life and Mission (Lucknow: Academy of Islamic
Research and Publications, 1975); Ghulam Mohammad
Jaffar, "Teachings of Shah Wali Allah and the Movement
of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid of Bareilly." Hamdard I si amicus
16, no. 4 (1993): 69-80; Barbara D. Metcalf. Islamic
Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (Princeton.
N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1982).

Basmachi

Basmachi, a Turkic word translated as “bandit,”
was a derogatory term used by Bolshevik and
Soviet authorities to refer to almost all forms
of violent indigenous Central Asia resistance to
Russian power following the Russian Revolu-
tions of 1917. This resistance grew in response
to the economic and social dislocation resulting
from Russian campaigns of land confiscation
and looting. The largest movement labeled Bas-
machi was led by Enver Pasha (d. 1 922), one of a
number of former Turkish military officers who
fought in the region under the banner of pan-
Turkism (a nationalist movement among Turkic
peoples). Although he commanded 15,000 to
20,000 troops by spring 1922, he and the other
Turkish officers were seen as outsiders, and they
failed to gain a real following among the popu-
lation. The Soviets made effective use of their
greater military force, and in 1923, the govern-
ment offered amnesty to those rebels who would
give up the fight and surrender their weapons.
Revolts continued, however, with one large
Basmachi group holding out for seven months
in 1924.

Numerous so-called Basmachi revolts con-
tinued into the 1930s with varying intensity in
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. These
revolts were different from those of the 1920s,
as they were unorganized, peasant-based move-
ments with less of a coherent ideology. Soviet
collectivization of agriculture, their campaign
to root out “class enemies*' in the countryside, as
well as an escalated struggle against Islam caused
the number of these uprisings to increase. Most
of the fighting men came from the peasantry, and
their leaders were village elders, tribal heads, and
Sufi shaykhs. Basmachi revolts were firmly rooted
in local communities, so that organizationally and
objectively they could never coalesce into a mass
uprising large enough to dislodge the Soviets. The
revolts also remained immune to calls to join the
larger national or pan-Turkic struggle. By the late
1930s, through military force and political and

94 basmala

economic concessions, Basmachi-style revolts had
been quashed.

See also Bukhara; Turkey.

David Reeves

Further reading: Edward Allworth, The Modem Uzbeks
from the Fourteenth Century to the Present (Stanford,
Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1990); Shoshana Keller,
To Moscow, Not Mecca: The Soviet Campaign against
Islam in Central Asia, 1917-1941 (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger, 2001).

basmala

The basmala, also known as the tasmiya , is an
Arabic word for the phrase bi-smillah ir-rahman
ir-rahim, “In the name of God most compassion-
ate, most merciful.” This is the first verse of the
Quran; it begins all of its chapters but one (Q
9), and it is recited before reading any part of the
Quran. According to religious authorities, people
should pronounce it before any worthwhile activ-
ity, such as a formal speech, a meal, taking medi-
cine, using the toilet, slaughtering an animal for
food, sexual intercourse with one's spouse, and
traveling. Many recite it when they awake each
day and before going to sleep. It is believed that
whoever repeats the basmala will be granted his
or her wishes, and it is also supposed to keep
Satan away. Important documents and religious
books begin with the basmala , and Muslim stu-
dents write it at the beginning of their homework
and exams. Also, Quran inscriptions on the walls
of mosques and other buildings begin with this
ph rase. Indeed, it is perhaps the most frequently
used verse in Arabic calligraphy, where it is writ-
ten in many styles and forms. According to the
hadith, “Whoever writes the basmala beautifully
will obtain many blessings" or “enter paradise.”
Because its words are believed to be so powerful
and beneficial, it is frequently used in amulets
to help people obtain a blessing or protect them
from harm. Car bumper stickers and decals often

feature it or its numerical equivalent, 786, which
is popular in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

The basmala has been accorded special status
in Islamic stories and commentaries, too. For
example, it is said that Gabriel once told Adam,
the first human being, that the basmala was “the
word whereby the heavens and the earth came
to be, by which the water was set in motion, by
which the mountains were established steadfast
and the earth made firm, and whereby the hearts
of all creatures were strengthened” (Jeffrey, 556).
Sunni Quran commentaries mention that the
basmala contains all of the sharia in it, because
in it God gives both his essence and attributes.
The Shia respect a hadith which says that all of
the Quran is contained in the basmala and that
Ali represents the dot under the Arabic letter b in
that word, meaning that Ali, the first Shii Imam,
embodies not only the basmala, but the entire
Quran.

Sec also Allah; baraka; names of God; Sunn-
ism; travel.

Further reading: Arthur Jeffrey, A Reader on Islam (The
Hague: Mouton & Co., 1962); Moshc Piamcnta, Islam
in Everyday Arabic Speech (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979).

batin (Arabic: inward, hidden)

The idea of an inner or secret truth is one that
has intrigued religious thinkers and mystics in
many different religious traditions. In Islam, this
idea is captured by the term al-batin. It is particu-
larly important in relation to the interpretation
of scripture. Sunnis arc known for being in favor
of interpreting the Quran to bring forth its con-
ventional, outward (zahir) meanings, a procedure
called tafsir. Many Shii scholars, on the other
hand, have contended that although the Quran
has outward meanings that change with the pas-
sage of time, it also has inward (batin), esoteric
ones that contain eternal truths. Indeed, they have
supported key doctrines in their understanding
of Islam by a process of scriptural interpretation

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship 95

they call tawil, which allows them to extract the
Quran's inward, symbolic meanings.

In their debates over the Quran's outward and
inward meanings, Muslims have invoked the fol-
lowing verse:

(God) sent down upon you this book in
which are some clear verses — they are the
mother of the book — and others that are
ambiguous. Those whose hearts are devious
follow what is ambiguous in it to cause dis-
cord when they interpret it. Only God knows
how to interpret it and those who are firm
in knowledge, they say: “We believe in it; all
comes from our lord." (Q 3:7)

Sunnis say that only God and Sunni religious
scholars are qualified to interpret the Quran,
especially the clear verses, while other interpreta-
tions are troublesome. The Shia maintain that,
to the contrary, God endowed the infallible Shii
Imams with the gift of interpreting both the clear
and ambiguous verses to extract their inward
meaning. They teach that verses referring to the
“straight path" (Q 1:6), the “light of God" (Q
64:8), and the “truthful ones" (Q 9:1 19) arc secret
references to their Imams. Even the Sun and the
moon, mentioned in Q 91:1-4, are interpreted to
represent Muhammad and Ali, while “day" stands
for the imams and “night" for the enemies of the
imams. Moreover, the Shia see the story of Abra-
ham's sacrifice (Q 37: 100-1 10) as a secret prefigu-
ration of Husayns martyrdom at Karbala in 680.
Most Sunnis would reject such interpretations.

The Ismailis, or Seven-Imam Shia, were the
first major Shii sect to propagate the idea of
inward meanings of the Quran, starting in the
eighth century. They maintained that Muham-
mad, as the prophet of Islam, was sent to transmit
the outward meanings of the Quran, and that the
Imams were charged with transmitting its inward
meanings. Most branches of the Ismailis accepted
the coexistence of the two kinds of interpretation,
as did the Twelve-Imam Shia. They also required

that members become knowledgeable about the
Quran's outward meanings before delving into
its hidden ones. Ismailis maintained that there
were ascending levels of inward meanings that
students had to comprehend in order to arrive at
the supreme truth. Sufis also have sought to elicit
the inward meanings of the Quran, but they do
so with the guidance provided by divine inspira-
tion or a Sufi master (shaykh or pir), rather than
an Imam.

Sec also haqiqa ; Ismaili Shiism; Twelve-Imam
Shiism.

Further reading: Moojan Momen, An Introduction to
Shii Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1985); David Pinault, The Shiites: Ritual and Popular
Piety in a Muslim Community (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1992).

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship

The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship was founded
by the American followers of Sri Lankan Sufi
mystic Muhammad Rahecm Bawa Muhaiyaddeen.
Little is known of the early life, not even the birth
date, of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. He emerged from
obscurity in the 1930s when he began to teach in
Colombo, where the Scrcndih Study Group was
formed. Here he was discovered by an American
spiritual seeker, and in 1971, he accepted an
invitation to move to the United States. Once in
Philadelphia, a group of disciples formed around
him, the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship was
organized, and he decided to stay in the West,
though he periodically returned to Sri Lanka to
teach.

Through the 1970s and until his death in
1986, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen was credited with a
number of books, many developed from his talks,
as he could not read or write, and the fellow-
ship grew slowly but steadily. Additional centers
were opened across the United States and one in
England before his death. Subsequently, the fel-
lowship has expanded to Australia.

^ 96 bazaar

While a Muslim, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen tried
to emphasize the universal quality of his message
that transcended religious labels. He centered his
message on the unity of God and human unity in
God and tried to so communicate the experience
of God as to speak to people of all religious back-
grounds. He understood a Sufi to be one who had
lost the self in the solitary oneness that is God. The
individual's soul is the point of contact, where the
realization of God is possible. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen,
who died in 1986, recommended that his disciples
constantly affirm that nothing but God exists, try
to eliminate all evil from their lives, inculcate the
Godlike qualities of patience, tolerance, peaceful-
ness and compassion, and try to treat all lives as
ones own life. These actions should lead naturally
to the practice of remembering God, the DHIKR.

The fellowship makes numerous books, audio-
tapes, and videotapes of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen s
presentations available to seekers through Fel-
lowship Press. Its headquarters complex in Phila-
delphia includes a building for public meetings, a
MOSQUE, and a press. Bawa Muhaiyaddcen's tomb,
located outside of Philadelphia, was dedicated in
1987. An estimated 5,000 adherents attend meet-
ings across the United States and in Canada, the
United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and
Colombo, Sri Lanka. The Fellowship's internet
site is found at http://www.bmf.org/.

See also Sufism.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: M. R. Guru Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, God,
His Prophets and His Children (Philadelphia: Fellowship
Press, 1978); M. R. Guru Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Truth
and Light (Philadelphia: Fellowship Press, 1974); M. R.
Guru Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, The Truth and the Unity of
Man (Philadelphia: Fellowship Press, 1980).

bazaar (Persian: marketplace)

One of the most important public spaces in Islami-
cate lands is the urban district known as the bazaar
or marketplace (called a suq in Arabic-speaking

lands), the center of business and commerce. Found
in cities from North Africa to India and Central
Asia, it consists of small shops, warehouses, handi-
craft centers, banks, public bathhouses, bakeries,
cafes, street vendors, and inns. People from all walks
of life cross paths there — the wealthy and beggars,
men and women, seniors and children, farmers
and soldiers, natives and foreigners, nomads and
sailors, the literate and the illiterate, the skilled and
the unskilled, men of religion and the laity, Muslims
and non-Muslims. The bazaar can be open air, but
Islamicate cities are also famous for their covered
marketplaces, with massive gateways that can be
closed at night for security. The bazaar is typically
subdivided into zones defined by craft or trade.
Thus, all of the spice shops are close together, as arc
those of the goldsmiths and silversmiths, copper-
smiths, sword makers, carpenters, cloth merchants,
booksellers, tent makers, and so on. Businesses that
do not make large profits tend to be located in sec-
ondary bazaars and peripheral areas, as arc the ones
that pollute, such as tanneries, slaughterhouses, and
pottery workshops.

Among the distinct buildings of the bazaar in
premodern cities is the caravanserai (also known
as the khan, /undue], or wihcila), a large rectangular
structure with an open courtyard, storerooms,
and stables on the ground level and lodgings for
traveling merchants above. It is estimated that in
the 17th century Cairo had as many as 20,000
shops and 360 caravanserais in its marketplace,
but most premodern cities had smaller commer-
cial zones. In rural areas, bazaars have not usually
been permanent parts of the landscape. Rather,
they have operated on a periodic basis according
to the days of the week, the most popular market
days being Thursdays and Fridays.

Islamic religious institutions have evolved
in close relationship to the marketplace. Grand
mosques for communal prayer are typically located
where the main business districts are. The income
from commercial properties in bazaars can be set
aside by the owners as charitable bequests (waqf)
to provide charity in perpetuity to the poor and

bazaar 97

Public market in Marrakesh, Morocco (Federico R. Campo)

to pay for the building, maintenance, and staff-
ing of mosques, MADRASAS, Quran schools, Sufi
hospices, hospitals, and public fountains. These
revenues have also been used to maintain holy
sites in Mecca and Medina and to care for the
needs of Muslims performing the HAJJ. A substan-
tial part of Islamic jurisprudence (f/qh) is con-
cerned with regulating commercial transactions,
and the ULAMA considered the bazaar an important
arena for enforcing public morality. Abu Hamid
al-Ghazali (d. 1111), for example, drew attention
to market practices that were violations of the
Islamic moral code, such as usury, price gouging,
selling defective merchandise, cheating with the
scales, and trading in forbidden goods (e.g., wine,
musical instruments, and silk clothing for men).
Following a fundamental ethical principle, when

they encounter such wrongdoing, good Muslims
are obliged to command what is right and forbid
what is wrong. Indeed, the medieval office of
the market inspector ( muhtasib ) was specifically
charged with regulating conduct in the market-
place, commercial and otherwise.

Religious authorities have been linked to
the bazaar in other ways, too. Many have come
from the merchant class, and even if they have
not, a considerable amount of their income has.
They have customarily managed funds from the
charitable bequests. Studies of the ulama in Iran
and Iraq reveal that they have been supported by
donations received from lay members of the com-
munity, especially the bazaaris, or merchants. The
economic relations between these two groups are
further cemented by their intermarriage.

98 Bedouin

In the modern period, the traditional bazaars
have adapted to the new global consumer econ-
omy. Many have become centers of tourism, such
as the old marketplaces of Fez, Cairo, Jerusalem,
Damascus, Aleppo, Istanbul, Jeddah, Delhi, and
Hyderabad (in southern India). But even in these
changed circumstances, the heritage of the tra-
ditional bazaar can still be felt when one walks
down their streets. Also, as it has in the past, the
contemporary marketplace can become a flash-
point for political protest, as happened in Iran,
where bazaaris joined with the Shii ulama to
spearhead the revolution that brought about the
downfall of the monarchy in 1978-79.

See also hisba.

Further reading: Michael Cook. Forbidding Wrong in
Islam: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2003); Yitzhak Nakash. The Shiis of Iraq
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994);
Andre Raymond. The Great Arab Cities in the 16th-l8th
Centuries: An Introduction (New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 1984); Lewis Werner, “Suq — 4,000 Years
Behind the Counter in Aleppo.” Saudi Aratnco World 55
(March/April 2004): 24-35; Paul Wheatley, The Places
Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, 7th
through the 10th Centuries (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 2001).

Bedouin

The Bedouin are Arab dwellers of the desert who
traditionally follow a nomadic lifestyle. Their
name is based on an Arabic word meaning to be
plain, to be open ( baclaa ), from which the word
desert ( badiya ) is formed, which suggests that
deserts are thought of as wide-open lands or
plains. The meaning of the word Bedouin stands
in contrast to the Arabic word for civilized town
dwellers ( hadar ). Bedouin is often, but not always,
used as a synonym for Arab. Bedouin peoples
have historically lived in the desert regions of
the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Jordan, Israel and
Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, North Africa, and outly-

ing areas of Africa and Central Asia. People liv-
ing in Cities and towns stereotype the Bedouin
as an uncultured lot, yet the Bedouin are also
recognized for their strong sense of tribal honor,
egalitarianism, generosity, courage, and poetic
eloquence. Medieval Muslim scholars thought the
“pure” Arabic of the Quran was closely related to
the Bedouin dialect of the Quraysh tribe, but most
modern scholars believe it was a common poetic-
language used throughout western Arabia. Several
have noted that values of Bedouin culture are
embedded in the religious language of the Quran.
Bedouin traditionally make their living by herding
pastoral animals (sheep, goats, camels, horses,
and cattle), which they lead to different grazing
areas and water sources within their tribal territo-
ries on a seasonal basis. Because of their seasonal
migrations and lifestyle, they dwell in tents that
can be easily transported from place to place.

Historical and ethnographic studies reveal
that pastoral peoples such as the Bedouin live in
a symbiotic relationship with town dwellers. For
example, they trade animal products for agricul-
tural products and goods produced by settled
populations. In times of drought, Bedouin take up
residence in urban lands until conditions improve.
On the other hand, town dwellers have relied on
Bedouin warriors for their defense and to guide
caravans to their destinations. Bedouin warriors
were also known for their raids on other nomadic
tribes, caravans, and settlements. Today the Bed-
ouin, like other nomadic peoples in the Middle
East and elsewhere, arc being forced to become
more sedentary by extensive conversion of lands
to agricultural development and government set-
tlement policies. In the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia
and Jordan, however, the Bedouin have been
recruited to form elite corps in their royal armed
forces. Bedouin ideals still color the cultural life of
peoples living in the Arabian Peninsula, as can be
seen in styles of dress, social customs, and fond-
ness for camping in the desert.

The religious outlook of the Bedouin is rec-
ognized for its simplicity. In pre-Islamic Arabia,

Bektashi Sufi Order 99

the features of the landscape (rocks, trees, and
springs) and religious shrines were the focal
points of their religious activity, which included
pilgrimage and animal sacrifice. In addition, four
specific months of the year were held to be sacred
times when warfare was prohibited for Arabs liv-
ing in the vicinity of Mecca. The early Muslim
community in Medina built alliances with Bed-
ouin tribes and won their conversion to Islam,
which was expressed by performance of Islamic
PRAYER and ALMGSGIVING. However, Bedouin also
allied with Muhammad's opponents, and when he
died in 632, many tribes that had converted to
Islam when he was alive attempted to abandon
it. This led to the Wars of Apostasy, in which the
Muslim forces under the leadership of the caliph
Abu Bakr (r. 632-634) proved victorious. The
rebellious tribes were reincorporated into the
Muslim community, and they played an important
role in the early Arab Muslim conquest of the
Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Indeed, the
conquest was really conducted as an extension of
Bedouin-style warfare involving small-scale raids
rather than massive troop movements.

The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406)
developed a theory of the rise and fall of civiliza-
tions based on his knowledge of the involvement
of Bedouin Arabs in the early conquests and the
subsequent emergence of lslamicate civilization
in the Middle East and North Africa. This theory
rested on the thesis that civilizations originate
with tribal solidarity (asabiyya) and the ability
of one tribe to dominate others. Eventually, this
dominance leads to the accumulation of wealth
and power and the birth of urban institutions.
Religion reinforces the moral basis of urban civi-
lization and tempers the destructiveness of social
forces, but eventually civilization succumbs to the
onslaught of new, more vigorous tribal groups.
A recent example of this pattern can be seen in
the rise of Saudi Arabia, which began in the 18th
century when the Saudi clan formed a multitribal
fighting force motivated by the religious ideology
of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792).

See also agriculture; food and drink; honor

AND SHAME.

Further reading: Leila Abu Lughod, Veiled Sentiments:
Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 2000); Donald P. Cole, Nomads
of the Nomads: The Al Murrah Bedouin of the Empty
Quarter (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1975);
Dale F. Eickelman, The Middle East and Central Asia: An
Anthropological Approach. 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001); Jibrail Jabbur, The Bedouins
and the Desert: Aspects of Nomadic Life in the Arab East
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1995).

Bektashi Sufi Order

The Bektashi Order, which is based in Turkey, was
formed by disciples of the 13th-century saint Haji
Bektash Vcli (walj), who is said to have migrated
to Anatolia from Khorasan. He settled in a village
in central Anatolia and exerted a strong influence
over the Turkish peasants and wandering der-
vishes living in the region. After his death, the site
of his tomb attracted followers, who eventually
formed a coherent order, which was firmly insti-
tutionalized by Balim Sultan in the early 16th cen-
tury. The order spread through lands occupied by
the Ottomans, especially in the Balkans. Bektashis
were affiliated with the Janissary corps of the Sul-
tan's army, for whom they served as chaplains. It
was this relationship that led to their suppression
when Sultan Mahmud 11 abolished the Janissaries
in 1826. Bektashis later reappeared but were again
officially closed down along with all other dervish
orders in Turkey in 1925. Nevertheless, Bektashis
have continued to exist in Turkey, and there arc
also communities in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Macedonia,
and Albania.

Like the Shia, Bektashis revere Ali and the
Twelve Imams but also Haji Bektash and other
saints. They seek spiritual perfection through cor-
rect behavior and disguise their beliefs through
a complex symbolism that pervades all Bektashi
ritual, clothing, art, and poetry. Disciples are

^ 100 Berber

initiated in an elaborate ceremony by a spiritual
guide called a baba (father), who continues to
direct their spiritual progress by instructing them
in Bektashi beliefs through the use of poetry,
stories, and even jokes. Bektashis meet in a cer-
emony (closed to outsiders) known as meydan ,
which is followed by a ritual meal in which food
is shared, poetry is sung to the accompaniment
of MUSIC, and disciples are instructed by the baba.
The feast also includes the consumption of alco-
hol, which has symbolic significance. Because of
their use of alcohol and their lack of compliance
with Islamic practices such as prayer in mosques
and fasting during Ramadan, Bektashis have
often been condemned by orthodox authorities,
yet they are also known for their wisdom, humor
and tolerance.

See also Ali ibn Abi Talib; imam; Shiism; Sufism.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: John Kingsley Birgc, The Behtashi
Order of Dervishes (London: Luzac & Co., 1937); F.
W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929); Frances Trix,
Spiritual Discourse: Learning with an Islamic Master
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1993).

Berber

Berber is a term for the most ancient known
culture, people, and language in North Africa.
Berbers, or Imazighcn, once lived from south of
the Sahara all the way from the Mediterranean and
from Egypt in the cast to the Canary Islands in the
tar west. During their long history, Berber-speak-
ing peoples have been influenced by a number of
religious traditions, including paganism, Christi-
anity, and Judaism, but the most profound debt is
to Islam. Today Berbers are overwhelmingly Sunni
Muslims.

Berbers were introduced to Islam in the eighth
century when some joined Arab Muslims in
conquering Spain (Andalusia), but the conver-

sion of more remote Berbers took hundreds of
years. Relations between Arabs and Berbers were
not always harmonious, particularly when Arabs
treated Berber speakers as inferiors. In the 12th
century, Berber groups formed the core of the
Almoravid and then the Almohad dynasty that
ruled much of Spain and North Africa, and Ber-
bers were central to the Marinid (1196-1464) and
Fatimid dynasties (909-1171) also. Today Berbers
continue to inhabit small communities in Egypt,
Libya, and Tunisia, but most live in Algeria, Mau-
ritania, Niger, and especially Morocco, where
they arc thought to constitute 40 percent of the
population. There are also large communities of
migrant Berbers in Europe, especially in Belgium,
the Netherlands, and France.

The term Berber relates to the Greek and
Roman word for barbarian , and thus many con-
temporary scholars and activists prefer the terms
Amazigh (singular) or Imazighen (plural) to
describe what most English speakers know as Ber-
bers. One thing that makes Imazighcn distinctive
is their language, which seems to be remarkably
similar over a vast territory and has persisted for
a very long time despite the political dominance
of written languages such as Latin, French, and
Arabic. Today Berber usually refers to someone
who speaks some variety of Berber (Tamazight)
as their first or only language, though there are
Imazighcn who do not speak the language but
remain passionately attached to Amazigh culture
and identity.

See also Almoravid dynasty; Fatimid dynasty.

David Crawford

Further reading: Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress,
The Berbers (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996);
Ernest Gellncr and Charles Micaud, Arabs and Berbers:
From Tribe to Nation in North Africa (Lexington, Mass.:
Heath, 1972).

Bible See holy books.

Bilal 101

bidaa (Arabic: innovation)

Bidaa is a term used by Muslim jurists and the
legally minded to classify beliefs, activities, and
institutions accepted by Muslims that are not
mentioned by cither the Quran or the sunna. The
most litcralist jurists, following Ibn Taymiyya (d.
1328), such as members of the Hanbali Legal
School and the Wahhabi movement in Saudi
Arabia and elsewhere overtly reject anything they
determine to be such an innovation. Most jurists
and many Muslims, however, follow the views of
AL-SHAFII (d. 820), one of the founding figures of
the Islamic legal tradition, who drew a distinc-
tion between innovations that are good (hasan)
and those that are bad ( sayya ) or blameworthy
( madhmuma ). Permissible innovations include
study of Arabic grammar, building schools, wear-
ing nice clothing, and serving good food to guests.
Widespread practices such as using arabesque to
beautify mosques and Quran manuscripts have
been classed as “disapproved" (makrul 0 innova-
tions but have not been subject to any penalty
or prohibition. Innovations that would lead to
idolatry and heresy arc classed as disbelief (kafir
[or Ku/r]), and may incur penalties. Sunni jurists
have included in this last class of innovations
popular religious practices associated with saint
shrines, Shii doctrines about the Imams, and the
sectarian beliefs of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam.

In the modern period, the idea of bidaa has
become more a part of Muslim religious discourse
and argumentation than ever before. Literalists use
it to condemn not only popular religious practices
but also secular customs in pluralistic societies,
such as celebrating birthdays, keeping pets, lis-
tening to popular MUSIC, and saluting a country's
flag. Paradoxically, they also have embraced the
use of modern technology never mentioned in the
Quran and sunna in their daily lives, to run their
institutions, and to disseminate their Islamic mes-
sage. Progressive Muslims for their part promote
the idea of the good innovation in their efforts
to reconcile medieval Islamic tradition with the
vicissitudes and ambiguities of a rapidly changing

world. Many are in agreement with thinkers such
as Khalid Abou El Fadl (b. 1963), who maintains
that whatever is based on moral insight cannot
be condemned or dismissed as a blameworthy or
corrupt innovation.

See also f/qh; Shafii Legal School; Shiism;
Wahhabism.

Further reading: Muhammad Umar Memon, Ibn Taymi-
yya's Struggle against Popular Religion (The Hague:
Mouton, 1976); Yusuf al-Qaradawi, The Lawful and
the Prohibited in Islam (A1 Halal Wal Haram Fil Islam),
trans. Kamal El-Helbawy ct al. (Indianapolis: American
Trust Publications. |1980|); Vardit Rispler, “Toward a
New Understanding of the Term bidaa." Der Islam 68
(1991): 320-328.

Bilal (d. ca. 641 ) African slave and early convert
to Islam who was freed and chosen to be the first
person to call people to prayer

Bilal ibn Rabah was a man of Ethiopian ancestry
born in Mecca as a slave to one of the powerful
branches of the Quraysh tribe, the Banu Jahm.
According to Muslim sources, he was one of the
early converts to Islam, but his owner would tor-
ture him to try to force him to give up his new
religion and return to the worship of Mecca's old
GODDESSes, Al-Lat and Uzza. He refused and would
utter the words, “One, one!" in reference to the
one God, Allah, while under torture. Abu Bakr,
Muhammad's close associate, was moved by Bilal's
steadfast courage and purchased his freedom by
exchanging one of his own slaves for him. Bilal
later joined other Mecca Muslims in the hojri to
Medina in 622. Muhammad appointed him to
be the community's first muezzin, the man who
makes the call to prayer, because of his melodious
and powerful voice. He also served as Muham-
mad's personal attendant. In his last years, Bilal
participated in the conquest of Syria, where he
spent the rest of his life.

Today there is a shrine for Bilal in the cemetery
of Damascus, and his memory is kept alive for

'Css'S

1 02 biography

Muslims around the world in oral traditions and
in children's literature about Muhammad's com-
panions. He is especially honored among African-
American Muslims, who consider him an ancestral
figure. Warith Din Muhammad (b. 1933), leader
of the American Muslim Mission, called his fol-
lowers “Bilalians," and he changed the name of
the Nation of Islam's newspaper to Bilcilian News.
Several mosques in African-American communi-
ties are named after him, too.

Sec also African Americans, Islam among;
Nation of Islam.

Further reading: Muhammad Abdul-Rauf, Balal ibn
Rabah: A Leading Companion of the Prophet Muham-
mad (Indianapolis, Ind.: American Trust Publications,
1977); Martin Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the
Earliest Sources (New York: Inner Traditions Interna-
tional, 1983).

biography

A biography is a written account about someone's
life story. The author has to make a choice about
what to include and exclude, how to organize the
narrative, and exactly how to represent the per-
son to the reader. Some biographies can be very
detailed; others may provide only a brief sketch
of a person's life. In the vast field of Islamic lit-
erature, biography is one of the most enduring
genres, encompassing a cumulative body of texts
that span nearly 1,400 years in Arabic, Persian,
Turkish, and other languages. It was used to
commemorate important people and to highlight
their praiseworthy qualities for the instruction of
others. A special kind of Islamic biography, called
hagiography in English, was composed to empha-
size the holiness of saints, recount their blessings
and miracles, and portray their superiority over
their enemies and rivals.

The most important biographies of Muslim
religious figures are those written about Islam's
foremost prophet, Muhammad. The prototype
for this group of biographies is The Way of Gods

Messenger ( Sirat rasul Allah), written by Muham-
mad Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) and later edited by Ibn
Hisham (d. 833). The purpose of this work was
to authenticate Muhammad's status as a true
prophet. It contains details about his ancestry and
family life, where he lived, relations with com-
panions and opponents, how he received revela-
tions of the Quran, his alliances and battles, and
miraculous events in his life, especially his Night
Journey and Ascent. This book has been the main
source to which Muslims (and non-Muslims)
have turned through the centuries for knowledge
about Muhammad, although many other Muslims
have written biographies about him, too. His per-
sonal traits and accounts about specific events in
his life have been celebrated in poetry, song, and
folklore in all Muslim societies. One of the most
widely known modern biographies of Muhammad
by a Muslim is The Life of Muhammad by the Egyp-
tian writer Muhammad Husayn Haykal (d. 1956).
There have also been film and cartoon versions of
his life, although he cannot be shown because of
the formal Islamic prohibition against portraying
the Prophet in figural form. Since the 19th cen-
tury, many secular scholars in Western countries
have written biographies about Muhammad, such
as W. Montgomery Watt, Frants Buhl, Maxime
Rodinson, and F. E. Peters. Most of the Western
studies have sought to explain the historical ori-
gins of Islam and critically assess Muhammad's
role as a leader, rather than portray him as an
exemplary prophet or holy man.

Muslim scholars have also excelled in produc-
ing biographical dictionaries, one of the most
characteristic kinds of Islamic literature. The stan-
dard for such dictionaries was set by Ibn Saad's
Book of the Classes ( Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir ),
which was written in Iraq during the early ninth
century to help establish the authenticity of the
hadith. It contains 4,250 biographies about the
men and women of the early Muslim community,
including Muhammad, his family, and the first
caliphs. Later dictionaries told about the lives and
accomplishments of hadith specialists, Quran

biography 1 03

reciters, jurists, judges, poets, rulers, bureaucrats,
and physicians. In the 13th century, Ibn Khallikan
(d. 1282) compiled the first comprehensive dic-
tionary of prominent people from all walks of life
who lived after the first generations of Muslims.
Its 800 articles were organized alphabetically.
Some dictionaries were organized according to
tribe; others limited themselves to telling about
the famous men of a single city or region, such as
Nishapur (in Iran), Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo,
Yemen, or Andalusia (Islamic Spain). Dictionary-
like biographical entries were also embedded in
historical chronicles and literary works. An entry
could range in length from a few lines to many
pages. One of average length typically provided
information about the subjects family lineage,
names and titles, EDUCATION, places lived in and
visited, writings, areas of expertise, employment
history, birth, and death. Because these books
were compiled by educated elites for their peers,
they neglected to include information about
the common people. Biographies about famous
women were also included in these dictionar-
ies — lbn Saads dictionary has entries for 600
women — but seldom if ever were a famous man's
female relatives mentioned, unless they were also
famous.

Muslim hagiographies focused on praisewor-
thy characteristics ( manaqib ), miracles, and teach-
ings of Sufi saints — the “friends ( awliya ) of God.”
These accounts were first compiled in Arabic dic-
tionaries at the end of the 10th century, just as the
Sufi brotherhoods were beginning to play a more
visible role in Islamic society. The first Sufi bio-
graphical dictionary was that of the al-Sulami of
Nishapur (d. 1021). It originally contained 1,000
biographies, but only 105 of these accounts sur-
vive in a very abbreviated version called Classes of
the Sufis (Tabaqat al-sufiyya ). The largest surviv-
ing collection of Sufi biographies is the Adornment
of the Saints (Hilyat al-awliya) by Abu Nuaym
al-Isfahani (d. 1038), which has 649 entries.
Beginning in 13th century, Sufi biographical dic-
tionaries were also written in Persian, as exempli-

fied by Farid al-Din Attars (d. 1220) entertaining
Memorial of the Saints (Tadhkirat al-awliya) and,
later, in India, Dara Shikohs (d. 1659) Ship of
the Saints (Safinat al-awliya). Similar works were
compiled in Turkish after the 16th century.

The introduction of mechanized print tech-
nology in the 19th century and computers in the
20th century has given new life to the Islamic bio-
graphical tradition. Printed editions of medieval
biographical dictionaries are widely available, as
are biographies of Muhammad, the first caliphs,
and other revered Muslims of the past. Some of
these have been translated from their original Ara-
bic or Persian language into modern Urdu, Indo-
nesian, English, and other languages. Moreover,
new biographies that reflect modern points of
view arc being produced in great numbers. These
works often show the influence of western styles
of writing, but their purpose is to reinterpret the
accomplishments of prominent Muslims in light
of contemporary interests and concerns in the
wider Muslim community: the search for authen-
ticity, refutation of Western Orientalism, religion
and nationalism, religious and political reform,
and the status of women. Ali Shariati (d. 1977),
for example, wrote about the lives of early Shii
holy figures to inspire Iranians in the decade prior
to the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. Several
books have been written about important women
in Islamic history in order to counter Western
and traditional Muslim stereotypes of women as
historically inconsequential and lacking social
or cultural agency. Among the leading Muslim
women biographical writers arc the Egyptian
Aysha Abd al-Rahman (also known as Bint al-
Shati, d. 1998) and the Moroccan Fatima Mernissi
(b. 1940). Another important recent development
is the publication of biographies in newspapers
and magazines and, most recently, the placement
of them on compact disks and the internet for
even wider circulation.

See also Arabic language and literature;
autobiography; Dara Shikoh; Persian language
and literature; Sufism; ulama; Wall

1 04 birth control and family planning

Further reading: Carl Ernst, “Lives of Sufi Saints." In
Religions of India in Practice , edited by Donald S. Lopez.
Jr., 495-512 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1995); R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History:
A Framework for Inquiry (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1991), 187-208; F. E. Peters, Muham-
mad and the Origins of Islam (Albany: Slate University
of New York Press, 1994); Widad al-Qadi, “Biographi-
cal Dictionaries: Inner Structure and Cultural Sig-
nificance." In The Book in the Islamic World: The Written
Word and Communication in the Middle East , edited by
George N. Atiyeh, 93-122 (Washington, D.C.: Library
of Congress, 1995).

birth control and family planning

Birth control and family planning are significant
issues in many Muslim countries today. Statisti-
cal surveys indicate that Muslim countries have
among the highest population growth rates in
the world. While the rate in Western countries
such as Great Britain is .2 percent, .39 percent in
France, and .89 percent in the United States, in
Muslim countries it can reach nearly 3.5 percent.
For example, it is 1.49 percent in Indonesia, 1.98
percent in Pakistan, 2.08 percent in Bangladesh,
2.44 percent in Saudi Arabia, and 3.44 percent in
Yemen. The governments of most of these coun-
tries as well as regional and international organi-
zations realize that such growth rates pose serious
challenges to social and economic development
programs. Many governments do not have the
resources to meet the needs of their own people,
and even those that have ample resources — partic-
ularly oil-producing countries such as Saudi Ara-
bia — have difficulty dealing with the challenges of
population growth due to inefficient or unequal
distribution of the wealth, corruption of officials,
or political instability. With growing populations
and inadequate resources, people are not able
to obtain adequate schooling, health care, and
employment. Even though governments realize
that family planning and birth control programs
can help alleviate these problems, other factors.

including religion, affect the extent to which they
are willing and able to implement them.

Muslims have looked to the Quran and hadith
for guidance on birth control and family plan-
ning, as they do for other issues of importance
in their lives. It is important to realize, however,
that their sacred scriptures are ambiguous on the
subject, therefore leaving room for different inter-
pretations. Two verses in the Quran forbid slay-
ing children because of inability to provide for
them (Q 17:31; 6:151). The Quran also implicitly
condemns the killing of female infants (Q 60:12;
81:8-9), a practice observed by some Arab tribes
in western Arabia at the time of Islam's appear-
ance. Such verses are used to promote a “right-to-
life" approach to birth control. Opponents of birth
control also quote verses that refer to children
as being a divine gift (Q 16:72; 18:46; 25:74).
They find additional support in the Quran and
hadith for the view that contraception is wrong
because only God has the power to determine
life and sustain it (Q 67:1-2; 56:57-74; 11:6).
Humans, therefore, should not act against his
will. On the other hand, advocates of birth con-

Egyptian newlyweds with family members Quart E.
Campo)

birth rites 105

trol quote hadiths that they believe support the
opposite position. One of these hadiths states that
Muhammad did not object to the practice of coitus
interruptus (Arabic: azl), a form of contraception
involving withdrawal of the penis from the vagina
before ejaculation. Many Muslim jurists argue that
this provides a precedent that allows for modern
forms of birth control. Another hadith states that a
man should not practice azl unless he has permis-
sion from his wife, which is interpreted as permis-
sion for women to have a say in their reproductive
rights. Abortion is also allowed by most jurists,
but only under specific conditions.

Even though birth control and family plan-
ning programs have been inaugurated by many
governments and nongovernmental organiza-
tions, their success has been hampered because
economic resources are lacking and because most
Muslim countries still have large proportions of
their populations making their livings by agricul-
ture, a way of life in which having large families
is traditionally an advantage. Furthermore, deeply
embedded traditions in male-dominant societies,
reinforced by conservative ULAMA, have encour-
aged parents to have many children. There arc
also political factors that have affected family
planning efforts. Some Muslim nationalist leaders
and religious authorities have urged families to
have many children as a way to resist domination
by non-Muslim governments. In this light, birth
control and family planning are portrayed as part
of a Western conspiracy to limit the size of the
Muslim population. This was the case with the
growth of the Palestinian population in the West
Bank and Gaza and in Iran, where the population
exploded from 34 million to 50 million between
1979 and 1986.

Ironically, the Islamic Republic of Iran has one
of the most successful family planning programs
in the world today. After a long, costly war with
Iraq (1980-88), the Iranian ulama realized that
they needed to curb Iran's population growth rate.
As a result, new family planning programs were
launched, and birth control devices were made

widely available. Now, when an Iranian couple
wants to get married, they are required to attend
a course on family planning that includes instruc-
tion in the use of intrauterine devices (lUDs),
birth control pills, and condoms. Birth control
devices are often distributed for free by govern-
ment health centers. For couples with children
who want to make sure they have no additional
pregnancies, voluntary vasectomies and female
sterilizations are allowed. In general, the govern-
ment now encourages people to have small fami-
lies rather than large ones.

Further reading: Basim Musallam, Sex and Society in
Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983);
Abdel Rahim Omran, Family Planning in the Legacy of
Islam (London: Routledge, 1992); Robin Wright, The
Ixist Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran
(New York: Random House, 2000): 160-187.

birth rites

Birth rites are observed in most religions and
cultures. They celebrate the addition of a new
member to the family and the community, express
feelings of gratitude toward the gods (or God),
and also involve practices intended to protect the
infant and mother from the harm of supernatural
forces. In Islam, there are no formally required
birth rites or sacraments, but Muslims everywhere
may engage in one or more traditional ritual prac-
tices when a child is born.

Most of the ulama concur that several ritual
practices related to childbirth are permitted. The
foremost of these is the aqiqa rite, which involves
animal sacrifice, shaving the infants head, and
performing acts of charity. Usually one sheep,
goat, or ram is sacrificed in thanksgiving for a girl
(two for a boy) on the seventh day after birth. The
act is believed to commemorate the near-sacrifice
of Ishmael (Ismail) by his father, Abraham (Ibra-
him). This is also when a child receives his or
her given name, a festive event that may include
Quran recitation and readings of the birth story

1 06 Biruni, Abu Rayhan, al-

of Muhammad. In early Islam, the naming cer-
emony was connected with a ritual called tahnik,
which involved rubbing the infant’s palate with a
date. This practice was based on the example of
Muhammad, who gave the first child born to the
Muslim community a date that he had chewed and
mixed with his saliva. Another practice is whisper-
ing the call to prayer (adhan) into the newborns
right ear and the second call to prayer, (iqama, or
the shahada) in its left ear. Islamic law exempts the
mother of the newborn from fulfilling daily prayers
and fasting while nursing and experiencing post-
partum bleeding, but before she can resume her
daily acts of worship, she is required to perform a
complete bodily ablution to purify herself.

Muslim authorities also approve of the prac-
tice of male circumcision, considered to be a
rite of purification and a symbol of membership
in the Muslim community. It does not have the
theological significance it is given in Judaism, in
which it symbolizes the covenant between God
and the people of Israel. In Islam, circumcision
was a greatly celebrated rite of passage that usu-
ally occurred when a boy was seven, 1 0, or 1 3. For
most Muslim boys today, however, it is done at
birth in a clinic or hospital. Female circumcision
(excision of the clitoris) is a controversial practice
that does not receive the endorsement of all reli-
gious authorities and is not widely performed.

There are many ritual practices related to
childbirth that are not endorsed by the SHARIA and
that ulama regard as harmful innovations (b/daa).
In many cultures, the mother observes taboos, or
ritual avoidances, for 40 days after birth, while
the midwife and the mothers female relatives and
iriends assist her in performing rites to appease
or repel evil spirits and to ensure the mothers
continued fertility. In Upper Egypt and Nubia, the
placenta, or afterbirth, may be taken to the Nile as
an offering to the river spirits. In Palestine, it was
customarily buried to keep domestic animals from
eating it and to ensure the well-being of the infant.
In many Muslim cultures, the umbilical cord may
be placed in a cloth bag to be worn around the

neck of the child as a kind of amulet, or it may
be buried in the house. Of course, many such
practices have been forgotten with modernization
and the impact of Islamic reform movements.
Nonetheless, some traditional practices prevail.
Today many parents still decorate the infant's body
or clothing with colorful beads or small pieces of
jewelry to deflect the Evil Eye.

Lastly, mention should be made of birthday
celebrations. Until recently, they were held only
for prophets and saints. However, a holy person’s
birthday (mawlid) is usually interpreted to be
the anniversary of his or her death, when they
go to the invisible world, rather than birth in
the material world. Ordinary Muslims living in
modernized societies now emulate Europeans and
Americans by celebrating birthday anniversaries
with cards, gifts, and sweets.

See also children.

Further reading: Winifred S. Blackman, The Fellahin of
Upper Egypt (1927. Reprint, Cairo: American University
in Cairo Press. 2000), 64-89; Jonah Blank, Mullahs on the
Mainframe: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001): 54-60;
Avner Giladi. “On Tahnik — An Early Islamic Childhood
Rite,'' Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medi-
eval Muslim Society (New York: St. Marlin’s Press, 1992):
35-41; Hilma Granqvist, Birth and Childhood among
the Arabs (Helsingfors: Soderstrom, 1947); Jafar Sharif,
Islam in India, or the Qanun-i Islam: The Customs of the
Musalmans of India, trans. G. A. Herklots (1921. Reprint,
Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1997): 21-40.

Biruni, Abu Rayhan, al- (ca. 973-
1051) Persian scholar famous for his books on
Indian religion and civilization, history, mathematics,
astronomy, pharmacology, and medicine
Al-Biruni was born near the city of Khwarazm
(modern Khiva in Uzbekistan) and gained his
early education from scholars in this region of
Central Asia. When the Turkish ruler Mahmoud
of Ghazna (r. 998-1030) conquered Khwarazm

Bistami, Abu Yazid al- 1 07

in 1017, he drafted al-Biruni into service as his
court astronomer and astrologer in Afghanistan.
Between 1022 and 1030, al-Biruni accompanied
Sultan Mahmoud in a series of attacks he launched
into northern India, which provided the scholar
with an opportunity to study Hindu religion and
philosophy for a period of about 10 years. He
met with Brahmins and even studied Sanskrit,
the sacred language of Hindus. The result of
these studies was his unprecedented book, the
India Book ( Kitab al-Hind), which he finished
writing in 1031 after he returned to Ghazna. The
book described in detail Hindu religious beliefs,
ritual practices, philosophy, the caste system and
marriage, as well as India's accomplishments in
MATHEMATICS and SCIENCE. He wrote it from a
comparative perspective that privileged his own
Islamic religion and culture but acknowledged the
accomplishments of the Hindus at the same time.
Al-Biruni also translated Sanskrit texts on Hindu
cosmology and philosophy into Arabic. Scholars
estimate that he wrote nearly 180 books on differ-
ent subjects in his lifetime, mostly in Arabic, but
many of these have been lost.

See also Hinduism and Islam.

Further reading: Al-Biruni, Alberuni’s India: An Account
of the Religion , Philosophy , Literature, Geography, Chro-
nology, Astronomy , Customs, Laws and Astrology of India
about A.D. 1030, cd. and trans. Edward C. Sachau (Delhi:
Low Price Publications, 1989); Seyyid Hossein Nasr. An
Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Boulder.
Colo.: Shambhala, 1964): 107-174; George Saliba, “Al-
Biruni and the Sciences of His Time." In Religion, Learn-
ing and Science in the Abbasid Period, edited by M. J. L.
Young, J. D. Latham, and R. B Serjeant, 403-423 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Bistami, Abu Yazid al- (Bayazid) (d. ca.

875) early Persian Sufi known for his ecstatic sayings
and mystical experiences

Little is known about Abu Yazid al-Bistamis life
except for the statements attributed to him by Sufi

tradition that reflect his intense religious experi-
ences of passing away (Jana) in God and mystical
flight. He is thought to have come from a Zoroas-
trian family living in the El Burz mountain area
south of the Caspian Sea in Persia (today's Iran).
He led an ascetic lifestyle, seeking detachment
from the world. Later, when he had ecstatic expe-
riences of union with God, he would make state-
ments such as “Glory be to me," as if God were
speaking through him. This, of course, roused
the anger of conservative religious authorities,
who considered such statements to be blasphemy.
However, Sufi scholars defended Abu Yazid by
attesting to his good standing as an observant
Muslim and by explaining that statements made
while in a mystical state differ from those made
while engaged in ordinary conversation, arguing
that he may simply have been quoting God rather
than speaking as God. Abu Yazid also spoke of
becoming a bird and flying through the realms of
the universe to the divine throne, like the Night
Journey and Ascent that Muhammad was reported
to have made. According to one account, when he
reached God, he heard his voice and melted like
lead, sensing that he was so close to him that he
“was nearer to him than the spirit is to the body"
(Sells, 244). Because of such utterances, he was
classed as one of the first “intoxicated" Sufis, in
contrast to “sober" ones whose experiences were
more attuned to maintaining a distance between
the self and God. Reports of Abu Yazid's sayings
spread through Persia to Iraq, Central Asia, and
Turkey. They were recorded in writing by the
10th century, when he had become so venerated
as a saint that learned scholars visited his tomb
to gain his blessing ( BARAKA ). The Mongol ruler of
Persia further embellished his shrine in the early
14th century. Abu Yazid was also memorialized by
having been included in the teaching lineages of
prominent Sufi brotherhoods.

See also asceticism; baqa and fana ; Tariqa.

Further reading: Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in
Sufism (Albany: State University of New York Press,

108 Black Muslims

1985): 212-250; Michael Sells, Islamic Mysticism: Sufi ,
Quran, Mi raj, Poetic and Theological Writings (New
York: Paulist Press, 1996).

Black Muslims See African Americans, Islam
among; Nation of Islam.

Black Stone

The Black Stone is a sacred rock encased with
silver that has been placed in the southeastern
corner of the Kaaba in Mecca. Though it is not
mentioned in the Quran, it is discussed in the
hadith, commentaries, and historical literature.
Its exact origins are uncertain, though it was
probably one of the sacred objects worshipped
in Mecca in pre-lslamic times. Western scholars
assert that it may have originally been a meteorite.
Early Muslim accounts say that it was originally
a radiant white sapphire brought by Gabriel to
Adam after his expulsion from paradise. It turned
to black as a result of being touched by idolaters
who were ritually impure. Another early story says
that Gabriel brought it to Ismail from a nearby
mountain when he and his father, Abraham, were
constructing the Kaaba and that they were the
ones who inserted the stone into the buildings
southeastern corner. When the Quraysh tribe was
rebuilding the Kaaba early in the seventh century,
Muhammad is reported to have been entrusted to
put the Black Stone back in its place when tribal
factions could not agree which one among them-
selves should do so. Some traditions state that the
Black Stone will develop the ability to speak on
Judgment Day in order to testify on behalf of those
who have kissed or touched it in good faith.

Despite the uncertainty of its origins, it is
indeed a focus of ritual activity on the part of
pilgrims who go to Mecca for the HAJJ and UMRA.
The pilgrims' seven circumambulations of the
Kaaba should begin and end at the corner where
the Black Stone is, and each time they pass it they
are supposed to kiss, touch, or salute it with their

right hands. This practice is controversial because
to an outsider it appears to be a form of IDOLATRY.
Muslims deny this and refer to a hadith wherein
the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 644) says, “By
God, l am kissing you knowing that you are a
stone and that you can neither do any harm nor
good. If 1 had not seen Gods Prophet [Muham-
mad) kissing you, 1 would not have kissed you.”
Thus, Muslims understand that they arc respect-
fully imitating the actions of their PROPHET rather
than worshipping the stone itself.

See also Adam and Eve.

Further reading: Arthur Jeffrey, A Reader on Islam (The
Hague: Mouton & Company, 1962); Muslim, Sahih
Muslim. Translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqi. 4 vols.
(Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1972), 1:641-643;
Francis E. Peters, The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to
Mecca and the Holy Places (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994), 14-15.

blasphemy

Blasphemy is from a Greek word that means
speaking evil. In the history of religions, it refers
to disrespectful or irreverent statements about
cherished or officially approved religious beliefs,
doctrines, institutions, and practices. It is usu-
ally considered to be a product of biblical tradi-
tion and the history of organized Judaism and
Christianity, in which speaking against God has
been severely condemned and occasionally pun-
ished. Blasphemy laws still exist in many West-
ern countries, though they are gradually being
repealed. Concern with blasphemy also occurs in
Islamic societies, where it is closely linked with
such serious transgressions as apostasy ( irtidad ),
disbelief (kafir), and idolatry. Muslim jurists
have used statements in the Quran that condemn
Muhammad's opponents for their outright denial
(takdhib) of the truth of his religious message
(e.g., Q 54, 5:10) or their fabrication (iftira) of
false beliefs (Q 11:18; Q 39:32) to justify impos-
ing harsh penalties against anyone they thought

blood 109

had verbally insulted sacred Islamic beliefs or val-
ues. Insulting Muhammad or asserting that there
will be no physical resurrection are but two of
the many verbal actions considered blasphemous.
Muslims and non-Muslims alike could be held
liable on blasphemy charges, which, if proven and
not retracted, could result in punishments ranging
from public censure, to disinheritance, to manda-
tory divorce, to death.

Muslim jurists have enforced blasphemy laws
only occasionally in the past. There were sev-
eral significant instances during the Middle Ages
involving Muslim philosophers and Sufis. The
most famous of these involved the mystic Mansur
al-Hallaj (d. 922), who was accused of saying, *T
am the truth,” (i.e. , God). In more recent times,
blasphemy charges have been made against follow-
ers of the Bahai Faith and of the Ahmadiyya branch
of Islam in Pakistan. There was also the famous
case of Salman Rushdie (b. 1937), who was con-
demned by Muslims around the world in 1988-89
for his imaginative novel Satanic Verses. Rushdies
opponents, led by the ayatollah Ruhollah Kho-
meini in Iran, said it slandered Muhammad and his
wives, and Khomeini issued a fatwa (an advisory
ruling based on the sharia) calling for his death.
Today, as governments in recently independent
Muslim nation-states increasingly try to centralize
their power and as Islamic activism escalates, some
states and radical Islamic groups are using the
charge of blasphemy to gain legitimacy and popu-
lar support at the expense of intellectuals, Muslim
liberals, and non-Muslim minorities. This has
given new life to the idea of blasphemy in Islam,
while at the same time more and more Muslims are
embracing the ideals of liberalism, pluralism, and
individual freedom of belief and expression.

See also Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid; crime and

PUNISHMENT.

Further reading: Carl W. Ernest. Words of Ecstasy in
Sufism (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1985); Rudolph Peters and GerlJ.J. DeVries. “Apostasy
in Islam.” Die Welt des /slums 17 (1976-1977): 1-25;

Abdullah Saeed and Hassan Saeed, Freedom of Religion ,
Apostasy and Islam (Burlington. Vt.: Ashgate Publish-
ing, 2004).

blood (Arabic: dam)

The vital bodily fluid of blood has special sig-
nilicance in the Quran, and in Islamic practice it
is the subject of ritual laws that are discussed at
length in the SHARIA.

The Quran regards blood as vital for human
life, as reflected in its condemnation of killing as
the shedding of blood (Q 2:30, 84). The Quran
also gives special importance to the blood clot
(alac }), which is considered the substance out of
which God created humans. The chapter titled
“Clots of Blood” (Q 96 al-Alaq ) begins: “Recite
in the name of your Lord who created — created
man from clots of blood,” thus stressing the power
of God in creating humans from such a humble
substance. In other verses, the alaq is a particular
stage in the development of the human (Q 22:5;
Q 23:12-14). Some modern interpreters have
compared these Quranic revelations to current
medical understandings of the development of
the human embryo and point to the similarities as
proof that the Quran contains biological knowl-
edge unknown to humans until recent scientific
discoveries.

Another indication of the importance of blood
in the Quran is the prohibition against ingest-
ing it, which is mentioned four times, along
with carrion, pork, and meat not consecrated in
the name of God (Q 2:173; Q 5:3; Q 6:145; Q
16:115). Because of this prohibition, all animals
to be consumed must be slaughtered by slitting
their throats and draining the blood completely.
This procedure must likewise be followed when
animals are sacrificed, as in the annual Feast of
Sacrifice, in which Muslims commemorate Abra-
ham's willingness to sacrifice his son upon God's
command. Though the Islamic version of the
story of Abraham is similar to that in the Old Tes-
tament, Muslim scholars agree that the purpose

^ 110 boat

of sacrifice in Islam is noi the atonement of sins,
as in the Old Testament; rather, what is important
is Abraham's submission to God's will. The Quran
states that with animal sacrifices, “It is not their
meat nor their blood that reaches Allah; it is your
piety that reaches him " (Q 22:37).

Lastly, in the sharia menstrual blood is consid-
ered to be a source of major impurity, and WOMEN
are exempted from PRAYER and FASTING as long as
their monthly period lasts, as are women expe-
riencing postpartum bleeding. When a woman’s
period ends, she must perform a complete ablu-
tion before engaging in an act of worship or enter-
ing a sacred place, such as a mosque. Rules about
menstruation and ritual purity are a major topic in
the hadith and FIQH literature.

See also dietary laws; Id al-Adha.

Further reading: Laleh Bakhtiar, Encyclopedia of Islamic
Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chicago:
ABC International Group, 1996); Somaiyah Bcrrigan,
ed., An Enlightening Commentary into the Light of the
Holy Quran. 2 vols. (Isfahan: Amir-al-Momineen Ali
Library 1994), 2:121-128; Maurice Bucaillc, The Bible,
the Quran and Science: The Holy Scriptures in the Light
of Modern Knowledge. Translated by Alastair D. Pannell
and Maurice Bucaillc (Indianapolis: American Trust
Publications, 1979), 198-210.

boat

Boats have been a primary means of transpor-
tation on the waters in Islamicate lands. The
Quran mentions Noahs ark, a boat made of
planks and nails (Q 54:13), and to this day the
benediction God gave to Noah when he launched
it — “Embark! In the name of God be its course
and mooring'' (Q 11:41) — is written on boats and
ships owned or used by Muslims. The Quran also
mentions ships boarded by Jonah (Q 37:140) and
Moses (Q 18:71). Muslims have used boats and
ships since the inception of Islam as vehicles of
commerce, travel, and military conflict. Seafaring
Muslim merchants have been a vital part of both

Egyptian feluccas docked in Aswan (Juan E. Campo)

the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean maritime
trading networks and were responsible for the
initial spread of Islam along the coasts of South
and Southeast Asia. Muslim navies controlled
much of the Mediterranean for centuries and took
part in such famous naval battles as the Battle of
the Masts, when a newly formed Islamic fleet first
defeated its Byzantine counterpart in 655.

There were a wide variety of types of boats
in medieval Islamdom, but there were two basic
methods of construction: the Mediterranean
method and the West Indian Ocean method. In
the Mediterranean, boats were built frame first,
constructing a wood skeleton and then attaching
the planking over it with metal nails. In the Indian
Ocean, boats were built shell-first, from the out-
side in, and sewn together completely with palm
fiber cord without the use of nails. After the intru-
sion of the European navies in the 16th century,
the Indian Ocean tradition gradually faded as boat
builders adopted European methods, which were
better suited to modern weaponry such as can-
non. Today a rich tapestry ol traditional boats still
exists in Muslim lands, from the fishing felucca of
the Nile to the merchant dhow of the Gulf, plying
the waters side by side with their more modern
fiberglass and metal counterparts.

Eric Staples

books and bookmaking 111

Further reading: George F Hourani. Arab Seafaring in
the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995);
Dionisius A. Agius, In the Wake of the Dhow (London:
Ithaca Press, 2002).

Bohra

Bohras, whose name comes from the Gujurati
verb "to trade," are members of an Ismaili Shia
community founded in Gujurat, India, in the late
11th century. The seat of the Fatimid dynasty,
then in Cairo, dispatched the daw at , or religious
mission, to western India to increase membership
in this tradition of Islam. Early in the process, a
disagreement concerning the identity of the 19th
Imam divided Ismailism; the Bohras believe that
Mustali billah (d. 1101) was designated as the
19th Imam, while the Nizari Ismailis believe that
this authority was invested in Nizar (d. 1095). In
1132, the 21st Imam from the line of Mustali bil-
lah, al-Tayyibi, became hidden from public. This
line of Imams continues in secret to this day. Since
al-Tayyibis concealment ( GHAYBA ), the community
has been led by a series of chief dais (religious
propagandists, missionaries); these leaders pos-
sess the title of dai al-mutlaq (cleric of absolute
authority). The dai al-mutlaq is the chief religious
figure of the Bohra community. He guides his fol-
lowers in both spiritual and worldly matters and is
thought to be in contact with the Hidden Imam.

The largest community of Bohras is the Daudi
Bohras, named after their 27th dai , Daud ibn
Qutb Shah (d. 1612). They number about 1 mil-
lion, live throughout South Asia, East Africa, the
Middle East, and the west, and are led by the 52nd
al-dai al-mutlaq, Muhammad Burhan al-Din (b.
1915), whose headquarters are in Bombay. Since
succeeding his father to the office of dai in 1965,
Burhan al-Din has initiated a number of changes
in the religious and administrative aspects of the
faith, emphasizing the congruence between Islam
and modernity He has built an extensive network
of Bohra schools whose curricula include the

combination of Islamic and non-Islamic subjects,
he has mandated a distinctive dress code for the
community, and he has helped to restore Fatimid
relics and architectural sites in Egypt.

The Daudi Bohras retain a religious hierarchy
similar to that of their Fatimid ancestors. The dai
al-mutlaq, who is appointed by his predecessor,
is responsible for filling positions in the dawat.
Local religious functions are performed by am its
(deputies/priests), community representatives of
the dawat. The Daudi Bohas also follow seven
(rather than five) pillars of Islam, as articulated
by Fatimid jurists. These arc: WALAYA (love and
allegiance) to God, the Prophets, the dais, and
the Imams; tahara (ritual purity); salah (prayer);
zakat (almsgiving); sawm (fasting); hajj (pilgrim-
age to Mecca); and JIHAD (struggle).

Other Bohra communities retain doctrinal
beliefs similar to those of the Daudi Bohras.
The Sulaymani Bohras, who have approximately
74,000 adherents, mostly in India and Yemen,
follow a different line of dais and are named after
their 27th dai, Suleyman ibn Hasan (d. 1597). The
Aliya Bohras are named after Ali ibn Ibrahim (d.
1637) and have approximately 5,000 adherents.

See also daawa ; Ismaili Shiism.

Jamel Vclji

Further reading: Jonah Blank, Mullahs on the Main-
frame: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Farhad
Daftary A Short History of the Ismailis: Traditions of a
Muslim Community (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener
Publishers, 1998).

books and bookmaking

The 10th-century royal of Cordoba (one of more
than 70 in the Umayyad capital of Spain) had a
catalog of 44 volumes listing more than 400,000
titles. The catalog volumes alone outnumbered
the total number of books in medieval France,
despite such important universities as those of

112 books and bookmaking

Paris and Chartres. Adelard, a 12th-century Eng-
lishman from Bath who traveled through Syria,
Palestine, Sicily, and Toledo (where many of the
Cordoban books and scholars resided after the city
fell to the northern kings during the Reconquista)
brought back two treasures: an Arabic translation
and commentary on Euclid's Geometry and ratio-
nalism. “The further south you go," he said, “the
more they know. They know how to think. From
the Arabs 1 have learned one thing: if you are led
by authority, that means you are led by a halter."
The lesson took root slowly, but a few hundred
years later Europe entered its Age of Reason and
the Enlightenment.

The wealth of knowledge and habits of rea-
soning encountered by Adelard and numerous
European travelers resulted from practical and
intellectual undertakings that were supported
by, and in turn enabled, a number of activities
and industries, from bookmaking to administra-
tion and international trade. The major medium
involved was paper, whose technology was avail-
able in the eastern parts of Islamdom (Samarqand
in Central Asia) and that was quickly adopted
by the Abbasids in the eighth century. Paper was
invaluable for official documents and bank drafts
because it was difficult to change once the ink was

Cairo bookbinder Hisham proudly exhibits his crafts-
manship (Juan E. Campo)

absorbed (unlike vellum, which could be scraped
clean). Paper was also relatively cheap to make,
as it was manufactured from rags produced from
flax. This made it part of the agricultural and
textile industries, as well as recycling and garbage
collecting activities. The flax grown in Egypt was
used in making linen, which could be reused in
making paper (a by-product was cheap flaxseed
lamp oil). A single excavation campaign at Fustat
(Cairo's medieval industrial and commercial hub)
produced hundreds of thousands of rags that were
earmarked for recycling into paper, a process that
required the water of the nearby Nile for pulping
and milling. (Today in Cairo the old community
of garbage collectors is once again recycling scrap
rag into paper products that are sold to tourists.)
Paper was also part of the informal economy of
Egypt; graverobbers sold linen shrouds to manu-
facturers who then recycled them into paper.
In 10th-century Egypt, as elsewhere, paper and
books depended on cities whose schools pro-
duced the literate consuming public and whose
shops, banks, and take-out restaurants required
paper as a primary or packaging material.

Collecting raw materials was only the first step
in paper- and bookmaking. Sheets of paper were
made in molds, then sized (scaled) and polished to
produce an adequate writing surface. Sheets were
either stacked or folded four times to produce
quartos that were then sewn together. Inks, pens,
and bindings of different materials (not to men-
tion metal inkwells, wood bookstands, and other
paraphernalia) were part of the writing craft, and
professional scribes usually made their own inks
and pens. Luxury editions (often commissioned
or produced in royal workshops) demanded
another crew of specialists that included paint-
ers (for illustrations), illuminators (for marginal
decoration), and gilders, as well as overseers who
coordinated the work. The finished pages were
polished again with a smooth stone (preferably an
agate) before they were bound in tooled leather or
papier mache covers. Sometimes the bound book
was slipped into a case with folding flaps to pro-

books and bookmaking 113

tect the edges. Books were then stacked on top of
each other on library shelves (which saved them
from bending and warping).

Paper was sold at specialty shops or by book-
sellers whose shops were usually close to mosques
and madrasas, since the scholars who studied and
taught there were major consumers. Booksellers
acted as publishers and distributors of books and
conducted searches for rare works on demand.
They were one link in the chain of knowledge
dissemination that began with authors. An author
published his work either by writing the first
copy himself or dictating it to scribes or stu-
dents. Scribes compared copies to ensure accu-
racy before selling them. A student had to read
the book back to the teacher-author (sometimes
in the presence of witnesses) before obtaining an
ijaza (permission; certificate) to teach and publish
the work himself. The ijaza and its circumstances
were always noted on the manuscript copy, so that
copyright and accuracy were maintained through
combined oral-written means. In teaching and
dictating the book to his own students, the origi-
nal student became part of the chain of authorized
transmitters of the authors work.

Scholars sometimes traveled to find an author-
itative transmitter of a specific work. Alterna-
tively, visiting scholars dictated or authorized
readings of their own works during their travels.
In these ways, knowledge was exchanged, shared,
and passed down for generations, often with com-
mentaries that were either published separately
or added to a book as marginalia (notes written
in the margins of the book). Commentaries were
often as important as the original works. They
corrected scribal errors, provided cross-references,
or glossed terms, names, and concepts that were
no longer familiar (and so aid us in understand-
ing the originals today). They also sometimes
questioned the content, thereby providing written
records of the processes of reasoning and disputa-
tion among scholars. Reasoning and questioning
(which required additional proof) were applied in
all areas, from mathematics to religious law (f/qh).

thereby always advancing the state of knowledge
in any field by eschewing blind dogma — the "hal-
ter" mentioned by Adelard of Bath.

The first great boom in paper and book pro-
duction in Islamdom occurred in ninth- and 10th-
century Iraq, when the Abbasids realized paper’s
potential in administering their vast empire, col-
lecting past knowledge, and disseminating their
own laws and histories. This boom revolved around
Baghdad, the capital and cultural center. It resulted
in changes that ranged from the format of books, to
scripts, to the conduct of everyday life. These pro-
cesses continued to develop over centuries before
the wide adoption of print. Despite great losses
due to time, fire, or recycling of paper and books
into new works, thousands of written works have
survived. Aside from many Quran manuscripts
and books on Islamic religion and history, they also
include translations and commentaries on Greek
works in philosophy, medicine, and geography
that would not have survived or reached Europe
(or reached it in understandable form) otherwise.
Nor would we have the glimpses of daily life that
we have from the thousands of scraps of paper
that were discovered in an old synagogue in Cairo
(the Geniza). From the paper and book industries,
we know the bases of the maps that aided Euro-
pean voyages in the 15th century, as well as how
a brother and sister consoled each other in letters
that traveled across great distances in the 10th.

See also calligraphy; education; literacy;
madrasa.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Bibliography: Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper before Print:
The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World
(New Haven. Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001);
James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed. Rev. cd.
(Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1995); Brinkley
Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination
and History in a Muslim Society (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993); Johannes Pederson, The Arabic
Book. Translated by Geoffrey French (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1984).

114 Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a predominantly Mus-
lim country in the southern Balkan mountains.
With an area of nearly 20,000 square miles (the
size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined),
it is bordered on the north and west by Croatia (a
predominantly Catholic country), on the east by
Serbia (a predominantly Eastern Orthodox Chris-
tian country), and on the south by Montenegro
(also a predominantly Orthodox land). It has a
small outlet to the Adriatic Sea providing it with
less than 15 miles of coastline.

Ethnically, Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to
three main groups: Bosniaks (a modern designa-
tion for South Slovaks who are mostly Muslim, 48
percent), Serbians (14.3 percent), and Croatians
(14.3 percent). In addition to Islam (40 percent),
the chief religions arc Eastern Orthodoxy (31
percent) and Roman Catholicism (15 percent).
The Bosnians and Herzegovinans do not form
separate groups ethnically so much as religiously,
being defined by their religious affiliation since
the 15th century. There is no separate language for
the country; its 4.6 million residents speak either
Serbian or Croatian.

At the end of the 12th century, Bosnia gained
its independence from its neighbors, the Hungar-
ians (including the Croatians) to the north and
the Serbians to the east. The Kingdom of Bosnia
was a religiously divided land. Its people were
partly Catholic and partly Orthodox, but many
were adherents of an independent third religion,
the Bosnian Church, which held to an esoteric
religion called Bogomilism, with roots in Mani-
cheanism. Originating in Macedonia, Bogomilism
had appeared in the 10th century and spread
across the southern Balkans. In Bosnia, where its
had its greatest support, it became identified with
the Bosnian national spirit and came to define the
people in contrast to the Eastern Orthodox faith
radiating from Constantinople and the Catholic
faith of the Hungarian.

Then at the end of the 15th century, Turkish
forces swept over the southern Balkans, and Islam

was introduced into Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Because of the use of the Inquisition by the
Catholic Church against the Bogomils, it appears
that given the choice, the Bogomils supported
the Turks over their former Catholic rulers and
assisted their conquest. Many Bogomils saw them-
selves as closer to Islam in belief than Christianity
and rather quickly converted to Islam, while the
remainder made the conversion through the next
decades. As Bosnian elites affirmed their Islamic
beliefs, many of their number rose to positions of
prominence in the empire, several serving as the
grand vizer in the sultans court in Constantinople
(Istanbul) in the late 16th century. Under Turk-
ish rule, a governor (pasha) was appointed who
made his headquarters in Sarajevo. The land was
divided into eight districts (sanjak s). Islam in the
land adhered to the Hanafi Legal School, the
school favored by Ottoman rulers.

In the 19th century, the Bosnians became
critical of what they saw as corruption coming to
dominate the Ottoman Empire, and a new spirit
of independence swept the land. A half century of
conflict resulted in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
pushing the Ottomans out of the area. Rather
than achieving independence, however, Bosnia
and Herzegovina came under Habsburg rule. At
the end of the 19th century, Bosnian Muslims
made a new effort to mobilize in the cause of
national independence with a focus for a time
in the Muslim National Organization. In 1909,
the Austrian authorities created a new office of
Reis-ul-ilema, the supreme leader of the Muslim
community. Austria continued to exercise its
hegemony throughout World War 1, after which
Serbia came to control Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Through the 20th century, Muslims existed as
the largest group in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but
the land was successively incorporated into larger
political structures — Serbian, Nazi, and Yugo-
slavian Communist — that repeatedly forced the
Muslims into a minority status. Successive govern-
ments also continued policies that set different eth-
nic and religious communities against each other.

Brethren of Purity 115

an expedient means of keeping control of the often
restless population. During World War II, Serbians
and Croats massacred Muslims, and the latter
retaliated in kind. Muslims suffered additionally
under the antireligious policies adopted by the
Marxist Yugoslavian regime of Marshall Tito (J os >P
Broz, 1892-1980). For a period, mosques were
closed, children were denied religious instruction,
and no teachers of Islam could be trained. In reac-
tion, a Muslim revival was noticeable in the 1960s
identified with nationalistic aspirations as much as
religious sentiments.

The Yugoslavian Federation fell apart in 1991.
Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its indepen-
dence. However, the effort to build a Bosnian state
was opposed by Serbians residing in the north
and eastern parts of the country. In attempting to
avoid the dissolution of the country, the Bosnian
president Alija Izctbcgovic (1925-2003) promised
that the new country would not evolve into an
Islamic state (in contradiction to a position he had
earlier advocated) and assured the rights of the
Christian minorities. The guarantees, however,
did not stop Serbians allied with troops of the
former Yugoslav Federation from starting a civil
war. The Bosnian war became one of the bloodi-
est experiences of the region. Serbian forces, with
the support of the government in Belgrade, which
had publicly disavowed its involvement, carried
out a number of massacres in pursuit of a policy
of “ethnic cleansing." The worst of the massacres
occurred in 1995 in Srebrenica, where thousands
of Muslims were slaughtered. Such actions led to
the postwar arrest of many of the Serbian leaders
as war criminals.

The war ended in December 1995 with the
signing of the Dayton Agreement, which included
a new constitution for the country recognizing
the three distinct groups within its borders and
assigning to each a set of specific rights and repre-
sentations in the new government.

See also Christianity and Islam; Europe; Otto-
man DYNASTY.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia:
The Policy of ‘Ethnic Cleansing ’ (College Station: Texas
A&M University Press, 1995); Robert Donia and John
Fine, Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Tradition Betrayed (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1994); John Fine, The
Bosnian Church: A New Interpretation (Boulder, Colo.:
East European Quarterly, 1975); H. T. Norris. Islam in
the Balkans: Religion and Society between Europe and the
Arab World (Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press. 1993); Mark Pinson, ed., The Muslims of Bosnia-
Herzegovina: Their Historic Development from the Middle
Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1993).

Brethren of Purity

The Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-safa), or True
Friends, were a group of 10th-century Muslim
intellectuals who compiled a remarkable philo-
sophical and scientific encyclopedia in Arabic
known as Essays of the Brethren of Purity (Rasail
iklnvan al-safa). According to some accounts, the
original author was supposed to be a venerated
figure such as Au ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) or Jaafar
al-Sadiq (d. 765), but scholars arc skeptical about
this. Rather, there is general agreement among
scholars that the encyclopedia was the product
of a philosophical movement in Basra, Iraq, that
was influenced by Ismaili (Seven-Imam) Shiism
and Sufism. The members of this movement were
from the elite learned class in Abbasid society.
What is most notable about the encyclopedia is
that it contains a synthesis of major traditions of
learning that flourished in the Middle East at the
time when the culture of the Abbasid Caliphate
(750-1258) was at its height. It combined Islamic
thought with other traditions of knowledge that
had originated in the cultures of the ancient Medi-
terranean region and in ancient India and Persia
and that were later inherited by Muslims. Thus,
the work recognized the previous intellectual and
ethical achievements of Greek, Jewish, Christian,
Hindu, and Buddhist cultures. Because of its
cosmopolitan outlook, conservative Sunni ulama
condemned it.

' Css ^ 116 Buddhism and Islam

The encyclopedia is divided into four parts: 1)
MATHEMATICS, which includes essays on astronomy,
geography, and Aristotle's logic; 2) natural SCIENCE,
including theories of matter, botany, biology, body
and soul, death and resurrection; 3) psychological
and rational sciences; and 4) religious sciences.
The Neoplatonic theory of creation by emanation
from a single creator, together with the notion that
all creation was organized according to a hierar-
chical pattern (an idea that had circulated widely
in the pre-lslamic Middle East), was a dominant
theme in the encyclopedia. Indeed, the ency-
clopedias avowed purpose was to teach people
how to purify their souls of bodily and worldly
attachments and ascend back to the divine source
from which they had come. The most famous
section of the encyclopedia is the lengthy debate
between animals and humans, which questioned
the moral right humans had to exploit animals as
slaves. The debate ended by affirming that animals
indeed were inferior to humans, but they had their
own intrinsic worth as Gods creatures, requiring
humans to treat them humanely.

See also adab ; Arabic language and litera-
ture; Ismaili Shiism.

Further reading: Lcnn Evan Goodman, trans.. The Case
of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn:
A Tenth-Century Ecological Fable of the Pure Brethren
of Basra (Boston: Twaync Publishers, 1978); Sayycd
Hossein Nasr, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Boulder,
Colo.: Shambhala, 1978), 25-104; lan Netton, Muslim
Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Breth-
ren of Purity (London: George Allen & Unwin. 1982).

Buddhism and Islam

Buddhism and Islam are two of the worlds major
religious traditions, and they have influenced each
other at points throughout history. Both religions
came into being in part through the isolated
meditations and subsequent spiritual insights of
the respective movements' founders, Siddhartha
Gautama (known later as the Buddha) in the sixth

century B.C.E. on the southern border of Nepal,
and Muhammad in seventh-century C.E. Arabia.
After the seventh century, significant interactions
between Buddhists and Muslims took place along
trade routes through Central Asia known as the
Silk Road. Through these routes, Islam made sig-
nificant inroads into Central Asia and China begin-
ning in the seventh century. Though Buddhism in
Central Asia started to decline with the political
expansion of Islam at this time, the region retained
Buddhist influences, and the Mongol invasions of
the 13th century helped to further bring Buddhist
influences from the east into this largely Muslim
region. Accompanying Muslim political expansion
eastward, Islam spread from Iran and Afghanistan
into South Asia, where its eventual political ascen-
dancy coincided with the 12th-century disappear-
ance of Buddhism in the regions of Afghanistan and
Pakistan, where it had existed in its “Scrindian"
form, and in India, its birthplace.

Over the centuries, Buddhists and Muslims
have influenced each other in the fields of medi-
cine, art, architecture, and literature, evidenced,
for example, in the blend of Muslim and Buddhist
ideas in the Tibetan Muslim literary classic The
Autobiography of Kha che Pha lu. Another example
of such mutual influence is the life story of the
great Sufi Ibrahim ibn Adham (d. 778), whose
hagiography bears striking thematic resemblance
to that of the Buddha, for he renounced his life
as the prince of Balkh — a region of present day
Afghanistan, where Buddhism flourished in the
early centuries C.E. prior to the arrival of Islam
in the eighth century — for a pious, ascetic life.
Significant cultural contact between Muslims and
Buddhists is also evidenced in the 13th-century
world history called Jami al-tawarikh , written by
a Persian official named Rashid al-Din (d. 1318),
which includes a biography of the Buddha in its
chapter on India, discusses Buddhist concepts
in Islamic terms, and documents the presence
of 11 Buddhist texts circulating in Persia in Ara-
bic translation. The destruction in 2001 of the
Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan by the

Bumiputra 117

Taliban, who viewed the statues as idols, brought
international attention to the shared geographic
and cultural history of these two religious tradi-
tions. Today there are Muslim communities in
regions with significant Buddhist populations,
such as China, Tibet, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri
Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. Also, Malaysia is
a Muslim country that has a significant Buddhist
population (20 percent), mostly ethnic Chinese.

Sec also Hinduism and Islam.

Megan Adamson Sijapati

Further reading: Ainslee T. Embree, Sources oj Indian
Tradition , Volume One: From the Beginning to 1800 (New
York: Columbia University Press. 1988); Gray Henry,
cd., Islam in Tibet, Tibetan Caravans (Louisville, Ky.:
Fons Vitae, 1997).

Bukhara

Bukhara is a city dating to the fifth to fourth
century B.c.E. and is now located in the Repub-
lic of Uzbekistan. The principal city in a desert
oasis, Bukhara came under the rule of the Arab
Umayyad Caliphate in 709. Over the next 700
years, Bukhara switched hands between Arabs,
Persians, Turks, and Mongols and came under the
control of Tamerlane in the 14th century. Bukhara
became a famous center of Islamic learning, with
the Naqshbandi Sufi Order taking its name from
Baha al-Din Naqshband, who lived in Bukhara
in the 14th century. Bukhara became a principal
stop on the great Silk Road caravan routes. The
Timurid dynasties ruled from Samarqand until the
invasion of Uzbek tribes early in the 16th century.
In 1557, Abd Allah ibn Iskander Khan (d. 1598)
made Bukhara his capital, from which his state
took its name. During the period of the Bukhara
Khanate, the city reached its historical zenith and
featured some of the most magnificent examples
of Islamicate architecture of the time. However,
internal feuding eventually weakened the khan-
ate, and in 1740, Bukhara fell to the Persians, only

to regain its independence in 1753, though greatly
reduced in size and power.

Bukhara was conquered by the Russians in
1868 and made a protectorate, allowing the rul-
ing dynasty to continue in power. With the turn
of the century, there arose a Muslim intellectual
reform movement, and these "Young Bukharans”
struggled against the conservative ULAMA for influ-
ence, only to be rebuffed by the ruling emir. With
the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian control
disappeared, only to reappear in 1920, when, with
the help of many of the Young Bukharans, Soviet
forces gained control, and the last emir fled into
exile. The Bukhara Peoples Soviet Republic was
established and lasted until 1924, when it was dis-
membered and divided between the Uzbek, Tajik,
and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics. Over the
years of Soviet rule, Bukhara lost its political and
economic importance, though it continues to be a
regional seat of Islamic learning.

See also Central Asia and the Caucasus.

David Reeves

Further reading: Audrey Burton, The Bukharans: A
Dynastic, Diplomatic and Commercial History 1550-1 702
(New York: St. Martins Press. 1997); Adccb Khalid, The
Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1998); Altilio Pctrocciolli, cd.,
Bukhara: The Myth and the Architecture (Cambridge,
Mass.: The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture,
1999).

Bukhari, Muhammad ibn Ismail Sec iiaditii.
Bumiputra

Bumiputra is an official designation for the native,
majority population of Malaysia (about 58 per-
cent). A Sanskrit-Malay word meaning son of the
Earth, it is applied to ethnic Malays, although
there is some dispute as to exactly which of
Malaysia's different indigenous groups are actu-

118 Buraq, al-

ally included under it. The use of the designation
Bumiputra was part of an effort to form a new
national Malaysian identity in the wake of inde-
pendence from British colonial rule in 1957. Also,
this usage seems to have been influenced by the
Islamic resurgence in the country. For a Malay to
convert from Islam to another religion not only
entails being accused of APOSTASY, it also means
giving up one’s national identity. According to the
1957 Malaysian Federal Constitution, a Malay
(Bumiputra) is defined as a follower of Islam who
“habitually speaks the Malay language” and “con-
forms to Malay custom.” Malay Muslims, there-
fore, not only stand apart from the Hindu and
Chinese Buddhist immigrant communities, they
are also distinct from immigrant Muslims.

In the 1970s, laws were passed to give Malay
Bumiputras special advantages. The king of the
country, for example, was charged with safeguard-
ing their privileges with regard to education and
employment. The result has been discriminatory
(some say racist) government policies that give
Malays more access to subsidized housing, state
universities, and government-contracted projects.
In a practice known as Ali Baba, a non-Bumipu-
tra company (Baba) must join in a partnership
with one owned by a Bumiputra (Ali) in order to
receive government business. Since 2000, under
pressure from non-Bumiputra groups, the govern-
ment has taken steps to allow for a more egalitar-
ian treatment of members of these groups.

See also RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Further reading: Janet A. Nagata, The Reflowering of
Asicm Islam: Modern Religious Radicals and Their Roots
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press,
1984); William Roff. The Origins of Malay Nationalism
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967).

Buraq, al-

Al-Buraq (an Arabic name possibly meaning "light-
ning”) is the fabled animal ridden by the prophets
that is most famous for having carried Muhammad

Al-Buraq, the legendary mount of the prophets (printed
poster)

from Mecca to Jerusalem and then up through
the seven heavens during his Night Journey and
Ascent. According to Islamic tradition, it was
brought to him by Gabriel already saddled and
bridled. In appearance, it was a winged white steed,
smaller than a mule, with long cars. It reportedly
flew through the air like the wind. Starting in the
14th century, al-Buraq was depicted in manuscript
illustrations with a womans head and a crown. This
is the way it continues to be depicted, sometimes
even with the tail ol a peacock, in Egyptian pilgrim-
age murals, Islamic religious posters, and colorful
painted trucks that ply the roads of Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and India. Al-Buraq is also the popular
name Palestinians have given the Western Wall in
Jerusalem, where it is believed Muhammad tethered
the animal when he prayed at the Aqsa Mosque.
There is even said to have been a small mosque
dedicated to al-Buraq in that spot. More recently, the
name has been adopted by modern cargo airlines
and internet companies because of the animal's
association with speedy movement through the air.

See also animals; folklore; horse.

Further reading: Juan Eduardo Campo, The Other Sides
of Paradise: Explorations into the Religious Meanings of
Domestic Space in Islam (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1991); Arthur Jeffery, Reader on Islam
(The Hague: Mouton & Company, 1962).

burqa 119

burial See cemetery; funerary rituals.

burqa (also burka)

From the Arabic term burqu, a burqa is a type of
partial or complete face covering worn by some
women in various Muslim cultures, at least since
the Abbasid period (c. ninth to 10th century) and
varying by locale and time period. It is most often
a "cloth covering the entire face below the eyes"
(Stillman, 147), but because the term burqu is
often used interchangeably with niqab and other
local terms for face coverings, it may also involve
different regional variations, such as a mesh cloth
over the whole face or an opaque cloth with holes
for the eyes.

No explicit religious injunction for the burqa
is found in the Quran or hadith, and the ulama
generally agree that it is not required dress
for women. In contemporary contexts, Muslim
women wearing modest dress most often choose
to cover the entire body except the face and
hands. Therefore, it may be said that forms of face
covering such as the burqa arc less commonly
worn by Muslim women than other types of mod-
est garments.

Reasons for wearing the burqa must be under-
stood within social contexts. Contrary to ste-
reotypical depictions, there exists no singular
meaning to explain why women may wear the
burqa. Rather, the burqa in its many forms may

be worn for a multitude of reasons, varying from
one context to another. Among countless other
meanings, it might make specific statements
about a woman's piety, her values regarding sexual
modesty, her resistance to Western notions of sex-
uality, her desire for privacy or mobility in male-
dominated environments, or her membership in a
political or national movement.

Conservative and radical Islamist movements
such as the Taliban in Afghanistan have recently
contributed to an increase in the numbers of
women donning the burqa. In this regard, the
Western mass media have helped make the term
familiar throughout the world, and for many, it
has come to symbolize the controversial Taliban
regime's abuse of Afghan women.

See also hijab; veil.

Aysha A. Hidayatullah

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in
Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); Dawn Chatty, “The
Burqa Face Cover: An Aspect of Dress in Southeast-
ern Arabia." In Languages of Dress in the Middle East,
edited by Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper and Bruce Ingham,
127-148 (London: Curzon and the Centre of Near and
Middle Eastern Studies. School of Oriental and African
Studies, 1997); Fadwa El Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy
and Resistance (Oxford: Berg, 1999); Ycdida K. Stillman,
Arab Dress: From the Dawn of Islam to Modern Times, cd.
Norman A. Stillman (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000).

Cairo (Arabic: al-Qahira; Misr al-Qahira;
or Misr)

The capital of Egypt, Cairo is a global metropolis
of about 16.8 million residents (cst. 2008), the
largest Muslim city in the world. It straddles the
Nile River near the ancient pyramids of Giza and
occupies an area of 82.6 square miles (214 square
kilometers) at the southern tip of the Nile Della in
northern Egypt. Most Cairenes (Cairo residents)
are Sunni Muslims who follow the Shafii Legal
School, but it is also home to a sizeable Coptic
Orthodox Christian population of several million
as well as immigrant communities from the wider
region of the Mediterranean basin, Africa, and the
Middle East. It hosts international businessmen,
diplomats, refugees, scholars, and technical per-
sonnel working for foreign companies. Al-Azhar,
the foremost Sunni university, is located there, as
are dozens of remarkable mosques, churches, and
other monuments that date back to as early as the
seventh century. It is also the seat of the patriarch-
ate of the Coptic Orthodox Church and has cathe-
drals belonging to several other Eastern Orthodox
churches. A thrivingjewish community once lived
there, but most Egyptian Jews emigrated to ISRAEL
after its creation in 1948. Cairo has played such an
important role in the cultural, social, economic.

and political life of the country and the region
that the nation itself is officially known as Misr,
one of the Arabic names for Cairo. In colloquial
Arabic, Egyptians like to boast, *’Masr (colloquial
for Misr) is the mother of the world" — the center
of civilized life. Despite its prestige and the influ-
ence it holds in Arab and Muslim countries, Cairo
is beset by the same problems faced by many other
large, crowded modern cities — urban crowding,
housing shortages, pollution, unemployment and
underemployment, and a stressed infrastructure.

The history of Cairo begins with a garrison
town named Fustat that was built on the east
bank of the Nile by the Muslim army of about
10,000 soldiers that invaded Egypt in 641. Fus-
tat was situated next to an old Roman fortress
known as Babylon. At the towns center was the
governors residence and a small congregational
MOSQUE, called the Mosque of Amr after the Mus-
lim commander Amr ibn al-As (d. ca. 663). This
mosque-government complex was surrounded by
markets and residential quarters for the different
Arab tribal groups that had formed the core of the
invading Muslim army. Fustat served as the first
capital of Egypt during the Umayyad Caliphate
(661-730), based in Damascus, and the Abbasid
Caliphate (730-1258), based in Baghdad. By

120

Cairo 121

^ 122 Cairo

ihe 10th century, it had developed into a thriv-
ing commercial center linking the Mediterranean
region and sub-Saharan Africa with the Red Sea
and Indian Ocean trade networks. It took several
centuries for Fustat to reach its peak as an urban
center, but once it did, visitors compared it to
legendary Baghdad because of its large markets,
parks, and beautiful gardens. Al-Muqaddasi, a
10th-century geographer, called Fustat “the glory
of Islam and the commercial center of the uni-
verse" (Raymond, 30). Among the products it
was known for were textiles, refined sugar, paper,
glass, and ceramics. Its population, estimated to
be 175,000, was large for cities of that time. The
rich tended to live alongside the poor, and some of
the people were housed in large multistory apart-
ment buildings that could hold 350 residents.
In addition to a growing population of Muslims,
Fustat also had Christian and Jewish inhabitants.
An area now known as Old Cairo had several
antique churches, one of which was believed to
stand on the spot where the infant Jesus and his
family had stayed when they fled Palestine during
the reign of Herod the Great (r. 37-34 B.C.E.). The
Ben Ezra synagogue was one place of worship for
Jews in Fustat, and it became famous late in the
19th century because of the large cache of papers,
known as the Geniza documents, that were dis-
covered there. These documents shed light on the
social and economic life of the medieval city and
on relations between Jews, Christians, and Mus-
lims. Fustats CEMETERY was situated to the east
of the city, and it later became the site of many
of Cairo's major funerary monuments, as well as
an important center of social life, as families went
there to remember the dead, worship at the tombs
of saints, and give charity to the poor.

The story of Cairo, however, is really a tale of
two cities — one for the common people and one
for the rulers. As Fustat grew, officials moved the
center of government outside the populated quar-
ters to vacant hills just beyond the northeast edge
of the city. The first of these governmental cities
was call al-Askar (“cantonment"), built in 751,

Medieval Cairo (Source: unknown)

which was replaced by another called al-Qatai
(“wards") in 869. In 969, a Shii dynasty known
as the Fatimids (r. 909-1171) arrived from North
Africa and founded a new governmental city
that replaced al-Qatai. They named it al-Qahira
(“conqueror"), from which comes the English
name Cairo , and they wanted it to serve as the
new capital for their caliphate, which rivaled that
of the Abbasids in Baghdad. The original Cairo
was built about three miles northeast of Fustat;
it was rectangular in shape, enclosed by a strong
defensive wall, and oriented toward Mecca. Inside
lived the Fatimid caliph, his household, officials,
and the army. The most prominent architectural
features were al-Azhar (the rulers' congregational

Cairo 1 23

mosque), a large palace complex, and a street that
bisected the city lengthwise from the southwest
to the northeast. The city soon developed its
own commercial district to serve the needs of its
residents, and increased prosperity caused it to
grow beyond the limits of the original walled city.
Additional mosques and public areas were built,
and special attention was given to establishing
shrines for AHL AL-BAYT, descendants of Muham-
mad. The most famous of these shrines are those
of Husayn ibn Ali (located within Cairo's walls),
and the tombs of the women saints Ruqayya and
Nafisa (located in the open area south of Cairo
and cast of Fustat). The two cities, Fustat and
Cairo, thus became symbiotically connected, but
distinct urban centers.

During the 11th century, famines and fires
contributed to a decline in Fustats population,
while Cairo grew and became more prosperous.
Common people were allowed to live there start-
ing in 1073, and its population began to occupy
new residential areas just outside the city gates.
Under the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty (r. 1173-
1230), it entered a new phase in its history. In
terms of religion, the Ayyubid conqueror SALADIN
(r. 1174-1193) and his heirs put an end to the
Fatimid Shii missionary activities that had not
been very successful in Egypt, and they promoted
Sunni Islam instead. They sponsored a building
program that involved erecting 25 madrasas to
propagate Sunni religious learning, especially
jurisprudence (FfQH), in addition to a number of
congregational mosques and Sufi hospices. They
also built a mausoleum for Imam al-SHAFU (d.
820), the founder of one of the four Sunni legal
schools, and an adjacent madrasa. To enhance
Cairo's defenses and to reinforce their control of
the city, the Ayyubids built a massive citadel on a
rocky spur overlooking Cairo and Fustat on the
east side, and they built a single defensive wall
that enclosed both cities and the citadel. During
the Mamluk era (1250-1517), this large urban
conglomeration grew in size, with more markets
and residential areas, palaces, mosques, hospices.

and hospitals. This was also when Cairo became
the most important center for Islamic learning in
the world, especially after the Mongol invasions
destroyed many of the cities of Persia and Iraq
in the 13th century. The city played host to many
scholars and mystics from the East as well as from
North Africa and Andalusia, despite the political
turmoil it endured at the hands of the Mamluk
rulers at this time.

After the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt
in the early 16th century, Cairo functioned as its
administrative capital for the region, and it con-
tinued to be a major intellectual and commercial
center. Its population actually grew from less than
200,000 to about 263,000 during this time. As
they had done in previous eras, the ULAMA served
as intermediaries between commoners and the
ruling elites, who were foreigners. Al-Azhar domi-
nated religious life as the main congregational
mosque and madrasa in Egypt, and it even rivaled
the religious institutions of Istanbul, the Ottoman
capital.

Cairo was briefly occupied by Napoleon's
French expeditionary force from 1798 to 1801.
The French scholars who accompanied the army
produced a detailed account of Egypt at the time,
the massive 23-volume Description de VEgyptc ,
which included important information about
Cairo and its institutions. The construction of
modern Cairo, however, did not begin until later
in the 19th century, when Egypt was ruled by
the Turko-Albanian dynasty of Muhammad Ali
(1805-1952). Bolstered by increased revenues
from the Suez Canal and cotton exports, Khe-
dive Ismail (r. 1863-1879) laid the foundations
for a new planned city on vacant land between
the old caliphal city of Cairo and the east bank
of the Nile River. He had been inspired by the
geometric pattern of streets and boulevards he
discovered during his travels in Europe, especially
by those conceived by the French planner Baron
Haussmann (d. 1891). This newly developed area
soon became the political, economic, and cultural
heart of the city, graced by parks and European-

^ 124 calendar

style buildings, including the first opera house
built in the Middle East. Today it is where many
of the embassies, international hotels, banks,
department stores, and cinemas are located. Thus,
visitors to Cairo will find a modern city and
its suburbs coexisting with what remains of its
medieval architectural core. Fustat has virtually
disappeared except for an archaeological park and
a district called Old Cairo, where the Mosque of
Amr, several churches and monasteries, and the
Ben Ezra Synagogue still stand.

See also Christianity and Islam; dhimmi ;
Fatimid dynasty; Judaism and Islam; mamluk;
Ottoman dynasty.

Further reading: S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society:
An Abridgement in One Volume. Edited by Jacob Lass-
ner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999);
Andre Raymond, Cairo. Translated by Willard Wood
(Harvard, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000); Max
Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious (London: Pica-
dor, 1998); Caroline Williams, Islamic Monuments in
Cairo: The Practical Guide (Cairo: American University
in Cairo Press, 2002).

calendar

The Islamic calendar is comprised of 12 lunar
months, based on the cycles of the moon rather
than upon those of the Sun, which forms the basis
of the Western Gregorian calendar. Each month in
the Islamic calendar lasts from one first sighting of
the crescent moon to the next. The 12 months of
the Islamic calendar in order arc Muharram, Safar,
Rabi al-Awwal, Rabi al-Thani, Jumada al-Ula,
Jumada al-Thaniyya, Rajab, Shaban, Ramadan,
Shawwal, Dhu al-Qada, and Dhu al-Hijja.

The Islamic calendar, comprised of 354 days,
shifts with respect to the solar calendar, with
each month in the former beginning 10 or 11
days earlier every year. Since the sighting of the
moon sometimes varies with respect to longitude
and latitude, the Islamic calendar may vary from
one part of the world to another. Because the

Islamic calendar shifts, solar calendars are often
used in addition to Islamic calendars. In Iran, for
instance, three calendars are in common use: the
Persian solar, the Islamic, and the Gregorian.

Muslims mark the first year of their calendar
(sometimes called the Hijra calendar) with the
establishment of the first Islamic community and
governmental structure in the city of Medina (in
modern-day Saudi Arabia), following Muhammad's
and the early Muslims' emigration from Mecca
in 622 C.E. Muslims designate this year as 1 A.H.
(i.e., anno Hegirae, or “hijra year")- Two of Islam's
most significant months are Ramadan and Dhu
al-Hijja. During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from
food, drink, and sexual relations from sunup to
sundown. They mark the end of this month by
Id al-Fitr, which celebrates the final breaking of
this fast. Dhu al-Hijjah is the month of the hajj,
or pilgrimage to Mecca, and at the end of the hajj,
Muslims commemorate Id al-Adha, which cel-
ebrates Abraham s readiness to offer his son Ismail
as a sacrifice.

While the above rituals are celebrated by
Sunnis and Twelve-Imam Shiis, there arc oth-
ers that are celebrated exclusively by the Shia,
or that they emphasize more than the Sunnis.
These holidays include the birth and death anni-
versaries of Muhammad, his daughter Fatima,
and the Twelve Imams (or sacred leaders) of
Shiism. The Shia also celebrate other significant
occurrences, such as Muhammad's public decla-
ration of Ali as successor at Ghadir Khumm near
Mecca during the Prophets final pilgrimage; the
meeting between Muhammad, his family, and
the Christians from Najaran at Mubahila; and
most significant for Shia, Ashura, or the 10th of
Muharram, which is the day Husayn, one of the
Prophet's grandsons, was martyred at Karbala
in modern-day Iraq. The annual rituals in which
Shia engage on this day and their related mean-
ings form a cornerstone of their collective iden-
tity and worldview.

The Islamic calendar is also punctuated by the
weekly Friday congregational prayers that involve

caliph 1 25

Muslims going in large numbers for noon PRAYER
at a MOSQUE. This prayer service is typically longer
than others during the week because it includes a
sermon based on the Quran. Finally, astronomy
and the Muslim calendar are significant for Mus-
lims because they help them calculate precisely
when during each day they must perform the five
obligatory prayers.

See also Five Pillars; holidays; Sunnism.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: Ahmad Birashk. A Comparative Calen-
dar of the Iranian, Muslim Lunar, and Christian Eras for
Three Thousand Years: 1260 BH-2000 AH; 639 BC-2621
C.E. (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1993);
David A. King, Astronomy in the Service of Islam (Aider-
shot, U.K. and Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum. 1993); Ahmad
Hussein Sakr, Feast, Festivities and Holidays (Lombard,
111.: Foundation for Islamic Knowledge, 1999).

caliph (Arabic: khalifa , deputy, vicegerent)

Caliph is the title of the ruler of the Islamic com-
munity after the death of Muhammad in 632 and
was claimed by many pretenders to that leader-
ship. Another title given the caliph was “com-
mander of the faithful'' (amir al-muminin).

As a prophet, Muhammad had been a unique
leader exercising absolute religious and political
authority. The caliphs were not prophets and
therefore could not exercise this dual authority
in the same way, and yet the community was
accustomed to leadership that was both political
and religious. The first four caliphs, known as
the Rashidun, or rightly guided, exercised some
religious authority as Companions of the Prophet,
but over time, the position came increasingly to
be a political one.

The majority Sunni view among Muslims is
that Muhammad did not appoint a successor,
and so his companions and leaders within the
community agreed upon Abu Bakr (r. 632-634).
There was no consensus, however, on whether

a caliph should be appointed or elected and by
whom, on what basis the selection should be
made, nor on the precise duties and responsi-
bilities of the caliph. These questions would con-
tinue to plague Islamic government throughout
the period of the caliphate. Abu Bakr appointed
Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634 — 644) as his succes-
sor, and it was during his caliphate that many of
the early Arab Muslim conquests took place. Due
in part to the legacy of the conquests, but even
more to Umar's ability to combine egalitarian
leadership and religious piety, he came to symbol-
ize the ideal caliph. His status was heightened by
the fact that the reigns of Uthman ibn al-Affan
(r. 644-656) and Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656-661)
that followed him were marked by internal strife
and civil war. These events led to ihe permanent
division of the Muslim community into Shii and
Sunni Islam and brought about the end of the
Rashidun caliphate. Subsequently, few caliphs
could be held up as ideal Islamic rulers. Rather,
they inherited and exercised their power in a
way similar to that of the kings and emperors in
neighboring non-lslamic lands.

After the 10th century, the caliph's power
was overshadowed in the political realm by the
sultans, and in the area of religion by the ulama.
The caliphs strength and significance was based
primarily on his role as the symbolic head of the
Islamic community. It was for this reason that the
Ottoman sultan Selim (r. 1512-1520), upon con-
quering the Islamic heartlands in the early 16th
century, adopted the title of caliph in order to
strengthen his religious legitimacy and authority.

As Ottoman power waned in relation to that
of European rulers from the 18th century onward,
Ottoman sultans sought to retain some authority
by claiming to be the spiritual leaders of the Mus-
lims and defenders of Islam. The Ottoman defeat
in World War 1, which led to the rise of the new
Turkish Republic, meant the end of the caliphate.
The founder of the new secular state of Turkey,
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, formally abolished it in
1924.

'Css^s

1 26 caliphate

See also Fatimid dynasty; imam; government,
Islamic; Ottoman dynasty; Sunnism; Umayyad
Caliphate.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds,
God's Caliph (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986); Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the
Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the
Eleventh Century (London: Longman Press, 1986);
Wilfred Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

caliphate

The caliphate is the office of religious and political
ruler in Islamdom. It went through several stages
of historical development. The first four caliphs
make up what is regarded by Muslims as the
Rashidun, or the caliphate of the rightly guided
(r. 632-661). These caliphs were all early converts
to Islam and close Companions of the Prophet
Muhammad. For the most part, they continued to
model the ideals of Islamic government: uphold-
ing proper religious practice and social justice. It
was during this period that Islam experienced its
most rapid expansion into Syria, Iraq, Persia, and
North Africa

The period of the rightly guided caliphate
ended in civil war, and the capital of the Islamic
empire and the caliphate moved from Medina
to Damascus. There the Umayyad Caliphate (r.
661-750) became increasingly secular, exercis-
ing authority based on the power of the military
rather than moral or religious authority. The
tension between religious legitimacy and secular
authority eventually led to the overthrow of the
Umayyads in the eighth century by the Abbasids,
who moved the capital to Baghdad, Iraq. The
early Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) is regarded as
the golden age of Islamicate civilization.

In addition to its wealth and power, the
caliphate symbolized the united Muslim com-

munity (umma), living proof that despite blood-
shed and civil war, God had not abandoned his
community. When the caliphates political power
began to decline, the Muslim community held
even more lightly to the symbolic significance
of the caliphate. Starting in the 10th century,
a series of military commanders seized control
of the military and political workings of the
empire. Eventually, authority was divided up
among these commanders, who were known
as amirs or SULTANS. Due to the symbolic and
religious significance of the caliphate, however,
sultans claimed to rule on its behalf. Throughout
the medieval period, the caliphate and sultan-
ate complemented each other, with the former
lending religious legitimacy to the latter, while
the sultanate provided the political and military
power to defend Islamdom.

The sultans proved incapable, however, of
defending Islam and the caliphate from the Mon-
gols, who destroyed Baghdad and the Abbasid
Caliphate in 1258. Even though the Mamluk
sultans of Egypt attempted to continue the caliph-
ate in Cairo through an Abbasid survivor, the
caliphate no longer carried the same religious
significance. When the Ottoman Turks defeated
the Mamluks in 1517, they absorbed the caliphate
into their sultanate.

When the Turkish nationalist Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk (d. 1938) dismantled the Ottoman Empire
and established Turkey as a modern, secular
nation-state, he formally abolished the caliphate
in 1924. This marked the symbolic end of an era
and made official what had in many ways been a
longstanding reality. Today there are still reform-
ers who call for a restoration of the caliphate,
believing that it is necessary for enforcing sharia
and establishing Gods government on Earth.

Sec also imam; Fatimid dynasty; Khilafat Move-
ment; Ottoman dynasty.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire:
The Classical Age 1300-1600 (London: Phoenix Press,

call to prayer 127

2000); Hugh Kennedy, The Armies of the Caliphs: Mili-
tary Society in the Early Islamic State (New York: Rout-
ledge, 2001); Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire,
1700-1922 (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2000); David Wasserstein, The Caliphate in the West:
An Islamic Institution in the Iberian Peninsula (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1993).

calligraphy

The term calligraphy comes from Greek kalli-
graphia , meaning beautiful writing, or the visual
elaboration of written scripts known in Arabic as
khatt (line).

Within the field of Islamic art, calligraphy
refers to stylized scripts in languages that use (or
used) the Arabic alphabet, among them Arabic,
Persian, Urdu, and Ottoman Turkish. The word
that designates the practice and the forms of styl-
ized writing is khatt, whose basic meaning as line
associates it with both architectural planning and
geometry. As calligraphy, khatt means penman-
ship or an individual hand, and khattat applies to
a master practitioner of khatt as a visual art form
(but also to sign painters).

The status of Arabic as the shared language
of Islamic scriptures led Orientalist historians to
associate stylized scripts exclusively with reli-
gious values and, at the same time, to consider
this writing a subset of (meaningless) arabesque
ornamentation. The practice of stylized writing,
in fact, has a number of internal histories that
governed forms, aesthetic criteria, and contextual
meanings. These histories show that changes in
the forms of letters indicate historical disruptions
rather than continuities; the adoption or rejection
of particular scripts was a conscious means of
expressing desired meanings through form.

The rationalization of scripts in 10th- and
11th-century Iraq produced a new canon of
writing in which clarity, legibility, and harmony
defined aesthetic quality in khatt. But this writ-
ing reform also allowed its Abbasid sponsors to
order and control the output of scribes and to

create a visual system that immediately expressed
loyalty to them as opposed to rivals such as the
Fatimids, who continued the use of angular
forms. This example demonstrates that the much
romanticized art of Islamic calligraphy neither
follows an evolutionary line in which angular
letters naturally mutated into rounded ones, nor
reflects identical and unchanging Islamic ideals,
but rather highlights distinctions among them.
Qazi Ahmad's 17th-century Persian treatise on
calligraphy similarly illustrates views governed
by a different time, place, and group ideology
and ascribes the invention of beautiful writing to
Imam Ali (d. 661), patron saint of Iranian callig-
raphers of the time.

Finally, the United States postal stamp
designed by khattat Muhammad Zakariya (whose
training comprises a spiritual content) illustrates
the use of calligraphy to symbolize the presence
of Muslims in the country. In this instance, an
official document again embraces khatt as a sign
of a particular community but deploys it as an
item of identity politics in a new cultural and
historical setting that reinterprets it to fit this
context.

See also Arabic language and literature;
Fatimid dynasty; Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-Hasan
Ali ibn Hilal; Ibn Muqla, Abu Ali Muhammad.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Orna-
ment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992);
Qazi Ahmad bin Mir Munshi al-Husayni, Gulistan-i
Hunar, trans. V. Minorsky, Calligraphers and Painters:
A Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, Son of Mir Munshi (circa
A.H. 101 5/A. D. 1606) (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution, 1959); Yasin Safadi, Islamic Calligraphy
(Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala Publications, 1978); Yasser
Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art During The
Sunni Revival (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2001).

call to prayer See adhan.

1 28 camel

camel

The camel is a large humpbacked mammal with
a long neck that has become the symbol of the
Arab Bedouin way of life. There are two kinds: the
dromedary, or one-humped, camel of Arab lands.
North Africa, Iran and India; and the Bactrian,
or two-humped, camel of Central Asia and parts
of Iran and Afghanistan. The dromedary was
originally from Arabia and was domesticated by
2500 B.c.E. It was essential for the subsistence of
Arab nomadic tribes, who used it for transport,
clothing, and food. Because of its strength and
ability to traverse great distances, the Arabs have
called it “the ship of the desert." It is mentioned
in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and
the Quran. Historical evidence indicates that the
camel gradually replaced preexisting wheeled
forms of transport in the Middle East after the first
century C.E. as a result of the growing influence
of camel-herding Arab traders on the economy
of the cities and the animals efficiency in desert
transportation and warfare. These developments
may actually have caused changes in the layouts
of Middle Eastern cities, where the straight streets
of the ancient Roman era gave way to narrow and
winding ones during the Middle Ages.

Camels were a favorite subject for the pre-
Islamic Arab poets, but among the most legend-
ary ones were the she-camels of Salih, an early
Arabian prophet, and Muhammad. Salihs camel
was miraculously brought forth from a rock to
prove to the people of Thamud (in northwest-
ern Arabia) that Salih was a prophet. The camel
provided abundant milk for the people, some of
whom became Muslims, but others who refused
to believe slaughtered the camel and threatened to
kill Salih. According to early Islamic stories, God
destroyed them for their disbelief as a consequence.
The Quran also tells a short version of this story
(Q 7:72-79, 11:61-68). Muhammad's she-camel,
according to early biographical accounts, was
allowed to wander in Medina until it stopped and
rested, thus determining the site where Muham-
mad would build his home and mosque. Another

famous dromedary carried Aisha, Muhammad's
widow, during the Battle of the Camel, when she
and other leading Companions of the Prophet led
an unsuccessful rebellion against the caliph Ali
ibn Abi Talib in 656.

Because the camel chews its cud but does not
have cloven hoofs, its meat is forbidden by Jew-
ish dietary law. This is not the case in Islamic law.
However, camel meat is not eaten as often as mut-
ton because the animal is more valuable as a beast
of burden and as a source of milk. In some areas,
such as the Nile Valley, it is used for plowing fields
and other agricultural tasks. Camels also serve as
sacrificial animals for Islamic holidays and saint
festivals. Muslim rulers from the 13th century
until the 20th century would send a camel-borne
palanquin to Mecca as a symbol of their author-
ity during the annual HAJJ. The camel is still a
popular theme in Egyptian pilgrimage murals and
folk art.

See also dietary laws; horse.

Further reading: Richard W. Bullict, The Camel and the
Wheel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1975); Gordon Darnel Newby, The Making of the Last
Prophet (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1989).

Camp David accords

The Camp David accords were signed by Egyptian
president Anwar al-Sadat, Israeli prime minis-
ter Menachem Begin, and U.S. president Jimmy
Carter on September 17, 1978, and created a
general framework for Israeli withdrawal from
the Sinai Peninsula, taken by Israel in 1967, in
exchange for a formal peace treaty between the
two countries. The 13 days of negotiations medi-
ated by the U.S. president were notoriously acri-
monious, and the two negotiating teams were held
virtual prisoners at the U.S. presidential retreat at
Camp David, Maryland, until they reached agree-
ment. Even in the hours leading up to the official
televised signing ceremony, Begin balked at put-

Canada 1 29

ting his name to a document that also included
provisions that would have led, if implemented,
to an eventual end to the Israeli occupation of
Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza based
on UN Security Council Resolution 242. An Egyp-
tian-Israeli peace treaty was signed by Begin and
Sadat in Washington on March 26, 1979. Subse-
quently, Begin and Sadat received the Nobel Peace
Prize for their agreement, but the Middle East was
left in turmoil.

The Camp David accords were the result of
a lengthy political opening to Israel initiated by
Anwar Sadat. After Sadat's surprise attack on
Israeli forces in the Sinai in October 1973 and
the resulting military stalemate, Sadat indicated
through secret diplomatic channels that he was
willing to negotiate a comprehensive peace agree-
ment with the Israeli government. For the next
four years, Sadat’s overtures to Israel fell on deaf
cars until November 20, 1977, when he made an
astounding visit to Jerusalem and addressed the
Israeli Knesset. Despite Sadat's bold initiative,
the Israeli government conducted substantive
negotiations only under pressure from the Carter
administration.

Significantly, the Camp David accords placed
the Palestinian question at the heart of the Middle
East conflict. Egypt, Israel, and Jordan were sum-
moned to negotiate an agreement to establish a
“self-governing authority" to represent the Pal-
estinian population in the occupied West Bank
and Gaza. When the Palestinian authority was
established, a transitional five-year period would
commence, the end of which would bring an
Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories,
Palestinian elections, and Palestinian “autonomy."
The Palestinian section of the accords was never
addressed and never implemented.

The Camp David accords resulted in a peace
treaty between Egypt and Israel as well as the final
withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Sinai Penin-
sula in the spring of 1982. However, the imperfec-
tions in this separate peace agreement led not only
to a rather "cold peace" between Egypt and Israel

but also to a profound crisis in the Middle East
region. Even before the final Israeli withdrawal
from Sinai, Sadat was gunned down by Islamist
opponents of the treaty on October 6, 1981.
Arab governments initiated a diplomatic boycott
of Egypt. The Begin government embarked on a
full-scale invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, just
weeks after the Sinai withdrawal. Israeli public
outrage at the massacre of Palestinian civilians in
Beirut in September 1982 and the rising Israeli
military casualties resulting from its occupation
of Lebanon led to Begins resignation in 1983
and his self-imposed withdrawal from public life
until his death in 1992. The Camp David accords,
while successful in achieving a negotiated peace
between Egypt and Israel, set an unfortunate prec-
edent of unfulfilled transitional phases and left the
question of Palestinian sovereignty unresolved.
These problems have since plagued every other
attempt to reach a truly comprehensive settlement
of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Palestine.

Garay Mcnicucci

Further reading: Irene Beeson and David Hirst, Sadat
(London: Faber and Faber, 1981); William L. Cleve-
land, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder,
Colo.: Westview Press, 2004); William Quandt, Camp
David: Peacemaking and Politics (Washington. D.C.:
Brookings Institution, 1986).

Canada

There has been a Muslim presence in Canada
since very early times, with the first national
census for 1871 showing 13 Muslims. It was not
until the 20th century that Islamic institutions
became established in North America. The first
mosque in Canada was the al-Rashid Mosque in
Edmonton, Alberta, built in 1938. June 28, 1952,
saw the first national Muslim conference in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa, with 400 Muslims from Canada and
the United Stales in attendance. In July, 1954,

' 45 =^ 5 130 Canada

the Federation of Islamic Associations of the
United States and Canada (FIA) was formed. The
first conference of the FIA was held in London,
Ontario, in 1955.

With the growth of the Muslim community
in North America and the migration of Muslim
students from other countries (particularly the
Arab world, but also Iran, India, Pakistan, and
Turkey) to study in North America, the Muslim
Students Association (MSA) was formed in 1963.
Today there are active chapters of the MSA in most
major colleges and universities in North America.
In 1981, the Islamic Society of North America
(1SNA) was created. It is the largest Islamic orga-
nization in North America, with its Canadian
headquarters in the Toronto suburb of Missis-
saugua, Ontario. There arc, of course, many other
Muslim communities in North America, repre-
senting such groups as the Shia (both Twelve-
Imam and Ismaili) and Sufi societies, the Nation
of Islam (and all of its splinter groups such as the
Nation of Five Percenters), the Dar ul-Islam, and
others.

There is no accurate count of the Muslim
population in Canada or the United States. The
Canadian census does ask the question of reli-
gious affiliation. The 1981 Census of Canada was
the first to recognize Islam as a separate, distinct
religious category. According to the 1981 cen-
sus, there were 98,165 Muslims in Canada. The
overwhelming majority (77 percent) of Canadian
Muslims were foreign-born, with only 23 percent
being born in Canada. In 1981, more than half
(53.1 percent) of Canadian Muslims lived in
Ontario. The figures from the 1991 census show
253,260 Muslims in Canada, an increase of more
than 2.5 times the number from 1981.

The figures from the 2001 census list 579,600
Muslims in Canada, an increase of almost 2.3
times the number from the 1991 census. The esti-
mate of 579,600, however, may be low. The main
reason is that most Muslims are recent immigrants
who are reticent to self-identify as members of a
minority religious group for reasons ranging from

personal privacy, to a perception of discrimina-
tion, to a desire to fit in. This is particularly true
with the recent immigration of refugees into
Canada from countries such as Somalia, Bosnia,
and Albania. On the other hand, estimates of
population numbers are often linked with self-
worth, that is, minorities often tend to prefer
higher estimates for their own group and lower
estimates for others.

The ways in which Islam is lived and prac-
tised in Canada can best be seen in the Toronto
area, which has the largest population of Canada’s
Muslims. Three umbrella organizations represent
various communities there: the Islamic Society of
North America (ISNA), the Canadian Council of
Muslim Women (CCMW), and the Council of the
Muslim Community of Canada (CMCC). There
is a strong Shii presence in Toronto, both in its
Twelve-Imam and Ismaili forms. Sufis, including
members of the Chishti, Alawi, Qadiri, Jcrrahi,
Rifai, Naqshbandi, and Nimatullahi orders arc
quite active in Toronto. The Ahmadis are actively
involved in proselytizing and have built the larg-
est mosque in the Toronto area. This mosque,
named the Bait-ul-Islam (House of Islam), is
actually the largest mosque in all of Canada. It
was designed in 1987 by Gulzar Haider, a pro-
fessor of architecture at Carleton University in
Ottawa, Ontario, and the same architect who in
1979 was asked to design the mosque for the
headquarters of the Islamic Society of North
America in Plainfield, Indiana.

While Islam is a minority tradition in Canada,
Sunni Muslims constitute the majority of Toronto's
Muslims. However, there arc substantial minority
communities who practice their own forms oi
Islam. Shi i traditions are quite well represented
in Toronto. One estimate is that Shiis make up at
least 30 percent of the total Muslim population of
North America, about twice that found generally
among Muslims, and attributable to immigration
patterns. The Shii community in Canada increased
dramatically after the expulsion of South Asians
from Uganda in 1972 and the subsequent arrival

cat 131

of Muslims from other East African countries such
as Kenya or Tanzania. Seven years later came the
revolution in Iran, resulting in another wave of
Iranian Shii immigration into North America.
There is also a substantial Ismaili community
in Canada (predominantly of South Asian and
East African origin), self-estimated to consist
of some 30,000 members in the Greater Toronto
Area alone. Another minority is the Ahmadi com-
munity in Toronto, which has experienced major
difficulties from other Muslims.

Amir Hussain

Further reading: Sheila McDonough, “Muslims of
Canada." In South Asian Religious Diaspora in Brit-
ain, Canada, and the United States, edited by Harold
Coward, John R. Hinncls, and Raymond Brady Wil-
liams, 173-189 (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2000); Rheem A. Meshal, “Banners of Faith and
Identities in Construct: The Hijab in Canada." In The
Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates , edited
by Sajida Sultana Alvi, Hooma Hoodfar, and Sheila
McDonough. 72-104 (Toronto: Women's Press, 2003);
Regula Qurcshi, “Transcending Space: Recitation and
Community among South Asian Muslims in Canada."
In Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe,
edited by Barbara Metcalf, 46-64 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1996); A[smal Rashid. 1981 Census
of Canada: The Muslim Canadians, A Profile (Ottawa:
Statistics Canada. 1992).

cat

During his travels in Syria, the American Roman-
tic poet and journalist Bayard Taylor (1825-78)
encountered an unprecedented sight: a hospital
where cats roamed freely and were sheltered,
cared for, and fed. This institution was funded
by a private endowment (waqf) that supplied
veterinary care, food, and caretakers' wages. The
British Orientalist and sometime denizen of Cairo
Edward W. Lane (1801-76) described a cat garden
that was originally endowed by the 13th-century

ruler al-Zahir Baybars (r. 1260-77). At a time
when European town dwellers ate cats or killed
them by papal decree (which led to rising rat
populations that may have hastened the spread of
plagues), cats enjoyed life in Arab cities in ways
that signal their special relationship with Arabs
generally and Muslims in particular.

The cat is the quintessential pet in Islam.
According to a HAD1TH, “Love of cats is an aspect
of faith." Other hadiths prohibit the persecution
and killing of cats. But it is because the cat is
considered pure that it is welcomed in homes; a
Muslim may eat food that cats have sampled or
perform ablutions with water from which they
have drunk. Such rulings arc often accompa-
nied by biographical snippets that demonstrate
Muhammad's fondness for cats. He took care of
the kittens that a cat was allowed to have on his
cloak, and he cut off his sleeve rather than disturb
a sleeping cat when he had to rise for prayers. His
own cat was purportedly named Muizza, and he
invented the nickname of the famous companion
and hadith transmitter Abu Hurayra (Father of
the Kitten) because the latter was always accom-
panied by his cat. According to legend, it was this
cat that saved Muhammad from a snake. Until
recently, Arab farmers also told of cats that warned
or protected them against snakes.

Cats were guardians of food stores and gra-
naries and, consequently, important members of
the environmental network that sustained cities.
In the text- and paper-based cultures of Arab-Isl-
amicate cities, they protected books against mice
and became friends to bibliophiles and scholars
with whom they sometimes appear in paintings.
The cats symbiotic relationship with people and
(crowded) cities is reflected in the account ol the
cat's creation in al-Damiri's (ca. 1341-1405) Book
of Animals: when the animals on Noah's Ark com-
plained of mice, God caused the lion to sneeze
and so created the first cat. Cats continue to play
this role in modern cities, where they prowl the
streets in pest patrols and keep impurities outside
the home. The cat's enemy is the lofty skyscraper,

132 cemetery

which is transforming the street hunters into
indoor pets.

Sec also folklore.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: Cats of Cairo, Photographs by Lor-
raine Chittock, Introduction by Annemarie Schimmel
(New York: Abbeville Press, 2001); Bayard Taylor. Lands
of the Saracen (New York: Putnam, 1855).

cemetery

A cemetery is a plot of land dedicated to the
burial of the dead. It is usually set apart from
residential and commercial areas and contains
distinctive monuments, religious buildings, and

gravestones that memorialize those who are bur-
ied in it. Beyond serving the practical end of
providing a place for the disposal of the bodies
of the deceased, cemeteries often are regarded as
sacred ground in connection with the afterlife
beliefs of a community. This is especially evident
for the Abrahamic religions, which believe in the
resurrection of the body for a final judgment.
For followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
therefore, cemeteries arc regarded as places of rest
for the dead until that time.

Cemeteries form part of the communal land-
scape wherever Muslims reside. In rural areas,
they are located in fields or elevated areas adjacent
to villages. Urban cemeteries are usually placed
outside the city limits. Cemeteries in medieval

Cairo’s City of the Dead (al-Qarafa) (Juan E. Campo)

cemetery 133

Islamicate cities were usually located outside the
city gates, where they could be easily reached
by funeral processions and people who wanted
to visit the gravesites of family, friends, or holy
people. Some urban historians have noted that
cemeteries may have actually inhibited the expan-
sion of some cities, but many cemeteries have also
been engulfed by urban growth or simply aban-
doned or forgotten with the passage of time. Jews
and Christians living in Muslim countries bury
their dead in their own cemeteries.

Visiting the dead and pilgrimages to the tombs
of Muslim saints are important aspects of life
for many Muslims to this day, even though such
practices arc condemned by followers of the most
conservative schools of Islamic law, such as the
Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia. During Ramadan, on
major feast days, and during the mourning period
after someone dies, families visit the cemetery
together, and women prepare food to distribute to
the needy on behalf of the dead. In Cairo’s larg-
est cemetery, the City of the Dead (also known
as al-Qarafa), there are family mausoleums that
look like houses where people pass the holiday
near their deceased relatives. Cemeteries may
have trees and gardens, which make them popular
places for strolling, picnicking, and other forms
of socialization. They were also known as places
where people could meet secretly to conduct illicit
activities, so secular and religious authorities have
periodically sought to control or ban people from
using cemeteries for anything other than their
intended purposes. In the popular imagination,
they arc believed to be places where the jinni and
demons may lurk.

Among the most famous cemeteries in Islamic
lands are the medieval ones found in Medina,
Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad, where the Com-
panions of the Prophet, his relatives and descen-
dants, and other important figures from early
Islamic history are buried. Najaf, Iraq, where the
Shii shrines of Muhammad's cousin Ali ibn Abi
Talib (d. 661) is buried, has the Valley of Peace,
a vast cemetery where many of the Shia lay their

dead to rest. The nearby shrine city of Karbala,
where Ali’s son Husayn (d. 680) is buried, has
another important Shii cemetery, known as the
Valley of Faith. In Iran, the shrine of the eighth
Shii Imam Ali al-Rida (d. 818) at Mashhad is
surrounded by cemeteries that began to develop
when Twelve-Imam Shiism became the religion
of the Safavid state in the 16th century. Tehran's
Behesht-i Zahra cemetery has recently become
famous as the burial place of Ayatollah RUHOL-
lah Khomeini (d. 1989) and Iranian martyrs of
the 1978-79 revolution and the eight-year war
with Iraq (1980-88). Also, powerful Muslim rul-
ers have left spectacular funerary complexes that
they built for themselves from Morocco to Cairo,
Tabriz (Iran), Bukhara (Uzbekistan), Delhi, Agra,
and Hyderabad (India). These constructions con-
tain some of the best surviving examples of medi-
eval Islamicate architecture in the world.

Small cemeteries can be found on the grounds
of mosques and madrasas located within city pre-
cincts, such as the Mamluk madrasas of Cairo,
Ottoman mosques in Turkey, and the Mecca
Mosque in Hyderabad. Sufi hospices may also
have burial grounds on the premises for a Sufi
saint, SHAYKHS, dervishes, family members, and
important patrons. For example, the shrine of
Nizam al-Din Awliyya (d. 1325) contains, in addi-
tion to the graves of his family and disciples, those
of Amir Khusraw (d. 1325), a leading Persian
poet and friend of Nizam al-Din, and Jahanara (d.
1681), an influential Mughal princess and patron
of the Chishti Sufi Order.

Since the 1970s, Muslim immigrants to Europe
and the United States have purchased lots within
existing non-Muslim cemeteries for the burial of
their dead. Some prefer, however, to transport the
bodies of their deceased back to their homelands
for burial.

See also death; funerary rituals; jinni; Sufism.

Further reading: Raymond Lifchez, ed., The Dervish
Lodge: Architecture , Art, and Sufism in Ottoman Turkey
(Berkeley: University of California. 1992); Muhammad

' 4s:5 ^ 1 34 Central Asia and the Caucasus

Umar Memon, Ibn Taymiyyas Struggle against Popular
Religion (The Hague: Mouton, 1976); Christopher
C. Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyara and
the Veneration of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999).

Central Asia and the Caucasus

The former Soviet republics of Central Asia are
overwhelmingly Muslim (the exception being
Kazakhstan, which continues to have a large non-
Kazakh population), while of the new republics of
the South Caucasus, only Azerbaijan has a Muslim
majority. However, there is a large Muslim popu-
lation in the North Caucasus that is still within
the Russian Federation. Present-day Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajiki-
stan as well as the North Caucasus are predomi-
nantly Sunni, while Azerbaijan is in the main Shii.

Islam came to Central Asia and the Caucasus
in the middle of the seventh century along with
Arab conquest (ca. 639-643). Throughout the
Middle Ages, Central Asia grew wealthy from the
Silk Road, which made its cities major centers
for the propagation of Islamic learning and cul-
ture, even during the era of the Mongol Empire
(13th century to 15th century), which provided a
degree of political unity. Sufism also played a very
important role in the development of Islam in
the region, both in the Middle Ages and modern
times. Sufis such as Ahmad al-Yasavi (d. 1166)
were particularly instrumental in Islamizing Turk-
men and Kazakh nomads. Sufism was also of the
utmost importance in establishing Islam in the
North Caucasus. Unlike Central Asia and the
North Caucasus, Azerbaijan was ruled by various
Persian states, and its people became Shia with the
emergence of the Safavid dynasty at the beginning
of the 16th century.

The Russian conquest of Central Asia and
the Caucasus over the course of the 19th century
took many forms and engendered many different
responses. In the North Caucasus in particular,
Sufi-led Islamic movements were able to fend off

Russian advances for nearly 30 years. The official
Russian policy, however, was to keep their hands
off the religious affairs of the two regions. Nev-
ertheless, under the increased influence of both
European ideas and wider Islamic intellectual
trends, there developed in the cities of Central
Asia and Azerbaijan the Jadid movement, a group
of young local intellectuals who sought to “mod-
ernize" Islam. They came into conflict with tradi-
tional religious authorities, and after the Russian
Revolution, they allied with the Bolsheviks. Many
became part of the Soviet administration. This
alliance did not last long, however — the last of
the former Jadids perished in Joseph Stalins Great
Terror of 1936-38.

The fragile Bolshevik hold on the two regions
in the early to mid- 1920s necessitated a cautious
approach to Islam, though party ideology called
for the abolition of all religion. In 1927, with the
rise of Stalin, this changed, and there commenced
a full assault on Islam both as a religion and as
a way of life. Women were forcibly unveiled,
polygamy was attacked, and bride price was
outlawed. Islamic social institutions were closed,
religious leaders arrested, and mosques destroyed.
This fight against perceived “backwardness’* did
not run smoothly, as large-scale revolts appeared
throughout both regions. By the early 1930s,
only through the mass use of force was resistance
broken.

With the coming of World War II, the Soviet
fight against religion lessened, and the overt
repression of religious leaders and places of wor-
ship declined. An officially sanctioned Islam
was promoted, with clergy and mosques under
the direct control of Soviet administrators. This
forced nonofficial Islam to push practices further
underground. The Soviet Union was never able to
destroy Islam, and with its collapse in 1991, Islam
regained its importance in local societies.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Islam
has become politicized throughout the two
regions, though the extent of this varies. The
continuity of leaders in the new republics has led

Chechnya 135

to a continuation of certain Soviet policies toward
Islam. In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, state-
sanctioned Islam is all that is allowed. Especially
in Uzbekistan, authorities have used the fight
against “fundamentalism*' and “terrorism” to
crush any political opposition. Immediately fol-
lowing the collapse in Tajikistan, a civil war broke
out between central secular authorities and self-
proclaimed Islamists. This war lasted until 1997,
with some Islamists brought into government and
a moderate Islamist party allowed. A politicized
Islam has also been prominent in the North Cau-
casus, particularly in Chechnya.

See also Basmachi; Bukhara; communism;
Islamism; Karimov, Islam; Naqshbandi Sufi Order;
Shamil.

David Reeves

Further reading: Devin DcWcese, Islamization and
Native Religion in the Golden Horde (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994); Ahmed
Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 2002); Anna
Zelkina, In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi Response
to the Russian Advance in the North Caucasus (New York:
New York University Press. 2000).

chador See burqa; hijab; purdah; veil.

charity See almsgiving.

Chechnya

Chechnya is located on the northeastern slopes
of the Caucasus Mountains, within the interna-
tionally recognized borders of the Russian Fed-
eration. The most recent Russian census placed
Chechnya's population at nearly 1.1 million, but
many estimates place the actual number between
600,000 and 780,000 people.

In the late 18th century, the Russian Empire
started serious military incursions into the North

Caucasus, and from the beginning, the fiercest
resistance came from the people of Chechnya and
neighboring Dagestan. The first major leader of
this resistance was Shaykh Mansour, who com-
bined Islamic preaching with military struggle.
The most successful uprising against the Russians,
however, took place from the 1830s to 1859 and
was led by Imam Shamil (1796-1871). A Naqsha-
bandi Sufi leader, Shamil for a period was able to
create an Islamic proto-state in most of present-
day Chechnya and Dagestan. With Shamil’s defeat,
the region passed into Russian control and relative
stability, though outbreaks of violence did occur.
With the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the
demise of central control, the Chechens declared
their independence and were briefly a part of a
federation of North Caucasian peoples called the
Mountain Republic. The Bolsheviks were able to
reestablish some control only after much costly
fighting in the early 1920s, though sporadic resis-
tance continued. The Chechens were deported
to Central Asia in 1944 for alleged collaboration
with the Nazis, and as a consequence a quarter
to a half of the population died. They were not
allowed to return home until the 1950s.

With the demise of the Soviet Union, tension
returned to the region. In 1991, the President of
Chechnya, Jokhar Dudayev (1944-96) declared
Chechnya independent and, though not recog-
nized by any foreign government or Russia, was
de-facto independent until the Russians launched
full military operations on New Year's Eve 1994.
An extremely bloody war ensued, with Russia ini-
tially making significant gains, but the Chechens
launched a major counteroffensive in 1995. By
1996 the Russians were defeated and agreed to
a cease-fire. Altogether, there were an estimated
70,000 casualties. The end of the war, however,
did not bring political or economic stability to
Chechnya. In 1999, following unexplained ter-
rorist bombings in Russia, which were blamed
on Chechens, and a Chechen military incur-
sion into Dagestan, Russia invaded Chechnya
again, sending almost 100,000 troops and creating

'tss S*3 136 children

approximately 250,000 REFUGEES. Though Russia
has claimed victory and has set up a pro-Russia
political administration, they do not control all of
Chechnya, and a war of attrition has continued to
the present.

See also communism; Central Asia and the
Caucasus; Naqshabandi Sufi Order.

David Reeves

Further reading: Thomas de Waal and Carlota Gall,
Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (New York: New
York University Press, 1998); Sebastian Smith, Allah's
Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya (New York: l.B.
Taurus, 2001).

children

Children are a vital part of society. They embody a
people’s heritage and its future, and although chil-
dren are often expected to contribute to house-
hold tasks and work to support their parents,
families and societies usually invest significant
resources and care in their upbringing, education,
and marriage.

Islamic views of children and childhood are
expressed in religious literature and the sharia,
and they are formed in the lived culture of the
Muslim family and the local community. In gen-
eral, Islamic perspectives on childhood reflect
norms commonly found in patrilineal societies, in
which sons are often favored over daughters. The
Quran teaches that sons and material wealth are
evidence of the favor God has shown to humans,
but it also teaches that such worldly blessings can
divert people from seeking God and the rewards
of the hereafter (Q 17:6; 8:28). On the other hand,
the Quran also teaches that believers be kind to
their parents, speak to them with respect, and
call upon God to bless them for taking care of
them during childhood (Q 17:23-24). The sharia
addresses legal issues concerning children that
are inspired by the ethical message of the Quran.
These include an explicit ban on killing infants,
including girls, and rules concerning adoption

and foster parentage. Muhammad (d. 632) was
orphaned at an early age (Q 93:6), and this very
likely helped make care for orphans and respect
for their rights to property foundational Islamic
values. The Quran instructs believers to do good
to orphans as well as parents and others in need
(Q 4:36), and it promises that those who do not
treat orphans well will be punished in the after-
life (Q 4:10). Another facet of the sharia protects
the rights of breastfeeding infants and their moth-
ers in event of divorce (Q 2233; 65:6), and it per-
mits resort to the services of wet nurses, following
the example set by Muhammad, who was nursed
by a Bedouin woman in his infancy.

Biographies of famous men and women have
little to say about their childhood years, but
substantial evidence for medieval Muslim under-
standings of children and childhood can be found
in legal, medical, and ethical literature. These
sources indicate that childhood was recognized as
a distinct stage in the formation of the individual
and that children were fully incorporated into
the moral, legal, intellectual, and emotional life
of medieval Islamicate societies. They recognized
that children had their own distinct personalities
and abilities, which form in the period between
birth and puberty. How a child has been cared

Three generations of an American Muslim family (Juan
E. Campo)

children 137

for, raised, and educated was thought to have a
direct bearing on his or her physical, mental, and
spiritual growth. Parents were instructed to teach
their children to do all things in moderation,
including good eating habits, since excess was
a source of bodily, psychological, and social ills.
They were also charged with encouraging moral
qualities such as honesty, generosity, and control
of the passions.

Medieval Muslim authors urged parents to
be gentle and compassionate with their children
and to exercise restraint in punishing them for
misbehavior. Of course, parents were expected
to inculcate their children with knowledge about
Islam and the performance of its religious duties,
particularly after the age of seven. A widely held
view was that children were by nature born to be
Muslims but that they learned their religion by
imitating their fathers and teachers. In regard to
their emotional development, children were to be
protected from traumatic experiences, and parents
were advised to comfort them immediately after
any painful or frightening event.

The DEATH of a child, particularly during the
first two years of life, was a reality that many fami-
lies had to face. Common causes of death were
gastrointestinal diseases, malnutrition, famine,
and plagues. Except for extraordinary situations,
Muslim jurists ruled that children were to be
accorded all the formalities of a proper Muslim
burial. Theological texts dealt with the fate of
children in the afterlife, and the deep emotions
caused by the loss of a child inspired authors
to write books and poems in order to comfort
bereaved parents.

Modernization projects launched during the
last 150 years by Western colonial governments
and reform-minded rulers of Muslim lands have
contributed significantly to improving the quality
of life for children in many of those countries. Pri-
mary and secondary schools were opened in cities
and towns, allowing more girls and working-class
children to gain knowledge and skills necessary
to improve their social and economic status. Even

children living in rural areas have gained access to
education, and many have migrated to cities when
schools were lacking in the countryside. Such
changes have enabled many to loosen the bonds of
dependence that linked them to their natal fami-
lies. Better health and nutrition have helped lower
infant mortality rates. Muslim majority countries
in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa consequently
experienced significant population growth in the
latter half of the 20th century. For example, as
infant mortality rates in countries such as Egypt,
Iran, and Bangladesh declined from around 200
per 1,000 in 1955 to around 35 per 1,000 in 2005,
their populations increased dramatically. Egypt's
population during this period jumped from 23
million to 77.5 million, Iran's from 19 million to
68 million, and Bangladesh's from 45.8 million
to 144.4 million. At the same time, the popula-
tions of Muslim-majority countries have grown
increasingly younger, unlike those of Europe and
North America. In Egypt and Bangladesh, 33 per-
cent are under the age of 14, while this number
in Iran is 27 percent (compared to 20 percent in
the United States and 18.4 percent in France).
According to World Bank estimates, 36 percent of
the population in the Middle Eastern and North
African region as a whole is under the age of 15,
compared to 16 percent among the countries of
the European Union.

Although children have often benefited
greatly from the changes modernization has
brought to Muslim-majority countries, they have
also suffered from them. They have become the
innocent victims of the national, regional, and
global conflicts that have shaken countries such
as Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Afghanistan. It
is estimated that 500,000 Iraqi children died as a
result of the economic sanctions leveled against
Saddam Husayn’s government in the 1990s by
the United Nations. On the other hand, radical
Islamic organizations have recruited children
and unemployed youths to serve as fighters or
suicide bombers in some countries. Moreover,
population growth, limited economic resources,

^ 138 China

and government inefficiency and corruption
have also had detrimental effects on children
in Muslim countries. International agencies
and relief organizations, including a number of
Islamic ones, have sometimes intervened to help
children faced with the harmful effects of such
developments, but the resources of these organi-
zations are limited.

Sec also abortion; biography; birth rites; cir-
cumcision; FUNERARY RITUALS; KUTTAB .

Further reading: 1 iamid Ammar, Growing Up in an Egyp-
tian Village: Silwa, Province of Aswan (1954. Reprint,
London: Routledge & Kcgan Paul, 1966); Elizabeth
Warnock Fernca, ed., Children in the Muslim Middle East
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Avner Giladi,
Children of Islam: Concepts of Childhood in Medieval
Muslim Society (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).

China

The People's Republic of China includes within
its borders a substantial Muslim population.
According to the 1990 census, there were
17,587,370 Muslims in China. Chinese-speaking
Muslims, or Hui, numbered 8,602,978 and arc
the largest percentage of the Muslim population.
The Hui can be found throughout China — there
are large communities on the southern Chi-
nese coast, in Guangdong and Fujian provinces,
which had very early contact with Muslim sea
traders. In Yunan province in southeast China,
there is also a sizeable Muslim population. There
are some quite different variations of belief
and practice between these and the other Hui
communities that live in close proximity with
Han Chinese society and the Hui of Gansu and
Ningxia provinces in the north. In these two
provinces, Muslims constitute the majority of
the population, and therefore Islamic social and
cultural characteristics are stronger and more
visible. Xinjiang, in Chinese Central Asia, is also
a majority Muslim province. However, the Hui
constitute a minority there, while mostly Turkic-

speaking peoples dominate. In this last group,
the majority are the Uyghurs, who numbered
about 7,214,431 in 1990. There are also a large
number of Kazakh, Kirghiz, Uzbek, and other
Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang.

The influence of Islam spread in China fol-
lowing the conversion of the Mongol rulers of the
13th century. With the rise of the Qing dynasty in
the 18th and 19th centuries, discrimination and
persecution increased along with greater outside
political, economic, and social control. During
this period, there were prominent Muslim rebel-
lions and attempts to create an Islamic state in
Yunan as well as Xinjiang and Gansu. Sufi broth-
erhoods, in particular the Naqshabandis, played
a large role in the rebellions. With the end of any
central state control following the Nationalist
Revolution in 1911, there were once again large-
scale uprisings in Xinjiang, Gansu, and Ningxia,
often pitting one Muslim ethnic group against
another, with the Hui allying more often with the
Han than with other Muslims. These uprisings
ended as the Chinese Communist Party consoli-
dated control over the region in the late 1940s and
1950s. The Communist state has recognized 10
separate Muslim nationalities that enjoy a greater
degree of autonomy in areas where they are a
minority. However, in Xinjiang, Han immigration
has increased significantly, which has hindered
the economic development of the indigenous
population. This has brought some unrest to the
region, leading to increased repression by the Chi-
nese Communist authorities in their “war against
terrorism.”

See also Central Asia and the Caucasus; com-
munism; Naqshabandi Sufi Order.

David Reeves

Further reading: Linda Benson. The Ili Rebellion: The
Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang
J 944-1 949 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1990); Dru C.
Gladney, Ethnic Identity in China: The Making of a Mus-
lim Minority Nationality (Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt
Brace College Publishers, 1998).

Chishti Sufi Order 139

Chiragh All* (1844-1895) 19th-century Indian
religious reformer and secularist thinker
Chiragh Ali was a Kashmiri Muslim who served in
the British government of north India in his early
career. In 1877, he was appointed to the court of
the nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad, where he served as
the revenue and political secretary. He was a close
ally of Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), the leading
advocate for modern Islamic reform in India after
the 1857 uprising against British rule that resulted
in the end of the Mughal dynasty and marked
the demise of Muslim rule in that land. Ali is best
known for books and essays that articulated the
Aligarh program for Islamic modernization in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. He maintained
that the Quran was authoritative in matters of
worship and morality but denied that it provided
an infallible blueprint for government or legisla-
tion. He objected to British Orientalists, Chris-
tian missionaries, and Muslim traditionalists who
claimed that Islam endorsed theocratic govern-
ment (the combination of religion and the state)
and that Islamic law was unchangeable. Instead,
he insisted that Islamic government and the
SHARIA were largely human creations that adapted
to changing historical circumstances in different
localities. His interpretation of jihad was that it
was a defensive strategy used by Muhammad and
the first Muslims when threatened with attack;
it was never intended to legitimate aggression in
the name of religion. He was critical of British
colonial rule in India, for he charged them with
having turned the country into a great prison — a
situation that would only bring about the “decay"
of the people. He called for political liberty and
thought it could best be achieved under the sov-
ereignty of the Ottoman SULTAN, who at that time
was trying to resuscitate the Ottoman Empire in
order to hold off the European powers. This does
not mean that he wanted a return to the old ways
of Muslim rule in India, however. He charged that
traditional Islamic legal rulings concerning gov-
ernment, slavery, concubinage, marriage, divorce,
and the status of non-Muslims were not suited to

the needs of modern Muslims, and he called for
their revision or elimination. Ali recognized that
his views were controversial but believed they
provided a basis upon which Muslims could erect
a platform for progressive change and freethink-
ing in the modern era. His life's work, therefore,
contributed significantly to the formation of the
modern Islamic liberal tradition in South Asia.

See also Orientalism; Ottoman dynasty;
RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS; SECULARISM.

Further reading: Aziz Ahmad. Islamic Modernism in
India and Pakistan, 1857-1864 (London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1967); Chiragh Ali, “The Proposed Politi-
cal, Legal, and Social Reforms." In Modernist Islam,
1840-1940: A Source-Book, edited by Charles Kurzman,
277-290 (New York: Oxford University Press, Septem-
ber 2002).

Chishti Sufi Order

The Chishtis are one of the largest Sufi brother-
hoods in South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Ban-
gladesh) and help give Islam in this region its
distinctive identity. They take their name from
a remote village called Chisht, which had been
a Sufi center as early as the 10th century. It
was Muin al-Din Chishti (d. 1236), a man from
Chisht, who established the brotherhood in India.
In genealogies of their Sufi masters, however, they
trace their ancestry all the way back to Muhammad
(d. 632), Ali (d. 661 ), and the 1 1 other Shii imams
and include such famous non-Indian Sufis as Ibn
al-Arabi (d. 1240), Ruzbihan Baqli (d. 1209), and
Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273). After Muin al-Din
and his contemporary, Bakhtiyar Kaaki (d. 1235),
the Chishti spiritual lineages consist predomi-
nantly of Sufi masters born in India, which makes
this order distinct from most other Sufi groups in
the region.

The foremost Chishti ritual practice is the dhikr
(zikr in local dialects), as it is in other Sufi orders.
The Chishti dhikr combines repeated pronounce-
ments of the names of God (especially Allah,

^ 140 Chishti Sufi Order

Tomb ofShaykh Salim Chishti, Fatehpur Sikri, India (16th century) (Juan E. Campo)

samii “hearer,” basir “seer," and alim “knower")
with yogic forms of breath control, meditation,
and other ascetic practices. The Chishtis included
Hindi, Punjabi, and Persian formulas in their
clhikrs, unlike other Sufi orders, particularly the
Naqshbandis, who stress Arabic recitations. The
most public forms of Chishti worship are musi-
cal audition (scuvaa) and pilgrimage to shrines of
Chishti SAINTS. Unlike other Sufis who were suspi-
cious of music’s legality and influence on the soul,
Chishtis embraced listening to music as a core
practice for the attainment of spiritual ecstasy, if
not a state of enduring ecstasy itself. Some have
combined audition with bodily movement and
dance. As a result of Chishti acceptance of musical
audition as a legitimate spiritual practice, other
Sufi brotherhoods in South Asia have also allowed

it. During the Middle Ages, these auditions were
meant only for initiated Sufis, but in modern
times both Sufis and non-Sufis attend them.
They arc called qawwali performances, and they
are regularly held at the tombs of Chishti saints.
These shrines arc the focal points of pilgrimage,
attracting pious visitors, men and women, Mus-
lims and non-Muslims, from throughout India.
The most celebrated shrine is that of Muin al-Din
in Ajmer, considered by many to be the Mecca
of Indian Islam. Other major Chishti shrines are
those of Farid al-Din Ganj-i Shakar (d. 1265) in
Pakpattan, Pakistan, and Nizam al-Din Awliya (d.
1325) in Delhi.

Since its foundation in 13th century India, the
Chishti order has intentionally distanced itself
from political authorities and dependence upon

Christianity and Islam 141

state patronage. Despite close ties to members of
the Mughal dynasty, the ideal of separation from
the state has prevailed, contributing to the orders
ability to flourish in modern, secular India and to
establish new roots in South Africa, Europe, and
America. Today people around the world enjoy the
musical heritage of the Chishtis through record-
ings of qawwali performances by artists such as
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the Sabri Brothers.

See also Khan, Inayat; Naqshbandi Sufi Order;
Sufism; tariqa; ziyara.

Further reading: P. M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of
Miiin al-Din Chishti of Ajmer (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1989); Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi
Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and
Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

Christianity and Islam

Islam was born into a world in which Christianity
was quite dominant, although the Hejaz, where
Mecca and Medina lie and where Muhammad lived
his life (ca. 570-632), apparently had more Jews
than Christians. Polytheism, of course, was the
most common religious characteristic of all in that
specific environment, and it was primarily against
that polytheism and idol worship that the Quran,
the message given to Muhammad, preached. Jesus,
called “Isa" or al-Masih (the messiah), and the
Christians are both mentioned repeatedly in the
Quran. Jesus is affirmed as a divinely appointed
messenger ( rasul ) who was given a message like
that of the Quran. In the Quran, Christians are
spoken of favorably in some contexts, as in Q 2:62,
which says, “Those who believe, and those who
follow Judaism, and the Christians (al-Nasara, the
Nazarenes) and the Sabians, any who believe in
God and the Last Day, and work righteousness,
shall have their reward with their Lord; on them
shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."

But other verses suggest a polemical relation-
ship, although that is much more in evidence with
regard to the Jews, a situation made sensible by

the significant Jewish population of Medina at the
time that Muhammad and the early Muslims went
to that town, and the fact that most of these Jews
appear not to have been convinced of Muham-
mad's prophetic mission. Thus, in Q 2:120, we
find the verse, “And the Jews will not be pleased
with you, nor the Christians until you follow their
religion. Say: Surely God's guidance is the [true]
guidance. And if you follow their desires after the
knowledge that has come to you, you shall have
no guardian from God, nor any helper."

The Quran claims a direct link between Islam
and Abraham, thus bypassing Jewish and Chris-
tian claims to be linked to that great forebear
of the monotheistic religions. For example, the
Quran challenges Jews and Christians, saying,
“You people of the Book, why are you so argu-
mentative about Abraham, seeing that the Torah
and the Gospel were only revealed after his time?
Abraham was not a Jew, nor was he a Christian.
He was a man of pure worship and a Muslim
[or a submitter]" (Q 3:65, 67). More assertively,
other verses state that the cultic worship around
the Kaaba in Mecca was founded by Abraham (Q
2:125).

The strongest Quranic polemic against Chris-
tian dogma concentrates on the Christian belief
in the Trinity and the death and resurrection of
Jesus. The Quran considers the Trinity to be an
expression of polytheism and utterly rejects any
ascription of divinity to Jesus. Christian belief in
Christ's divinity is understood in the Quran to be
in direct contradiction to the message preached by
Jesus. Equally important, the Quran denies Jesus'
death, saying, “They did not kill him, nor did they
crucify him, but it was made to appear to them as
such" (Q 4:157). Because these objections to the
doctrines held by most Christians in the seventh
century were so familiar from the previous centu-
ries of Christological controversy, it appeared to
John of Damascus (d. ca.749), one of the fathers
of the Greek church, that Islam was essentially a
Christian “heresy," and he placed Islam at the end
of the section on heresies in his great work, De

-4=5=5

142 Christianity and Islam

Fide Orlhodoxa. The Quran also rejects monasti-
cism, which had become a major expression of
Christian piety and asceticism in the Middle East
by that time.

Other than the adherents of Arabian polythe-
ism, who were fought until they converted to
Islam, non-Muslims within lands controlled by
Muslim governments have historically been dealt
with as dhimmi s, protected by the government and
allowed freedom of religion so long as they paid a
poll tax (jizya ) and did not publicly offend Muslim
sensibilities. Where Christianity had been deeply
rooted before the coming of Islam, it generally
has retained a presence. Thus, in the countries of
the Fertile Crescent, such as Iraq, Syria (includ-
ing Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon), but also in
Egypt, there are strong Christian communities
with historical ties to the Christian churches and
communities that were present in the Middle East
before the rise of Islam. This is also true of India,
which has a Christian community tracing itself
back to the first century and which has had an
uninterrupted presence there. North Africa west
of Egypt, on the other hand, witnessed a relatively
quick, complete conversion to Islam within a
few centuries of its appearance, although Jewish
communities continued to thrive there until the
mid-20th century. In Andalusia (Spain), Chris-
tians continued to thrive and partake of public
life during the period of Muslim rule (711 to the
final conquest of Granada in 1492). The Christian
Arabs of Andalusia as well as Jews provided an
important conduit for transferring the scientific
and philosophical knowledge of Islamdom — far
more sophisticated than that of Europe at the
time — to the north.

In most Muslim-majority countries today,
there are numerous Catholic, Orthodox, and
Protestant churches. Even leaving aside the Prot-
estant churches, there are as many as 20 Apostolic
churches, depending on how they are counted.
This is largely because, as a result of missionary
efforts and splits along the way, a single, formerly
"national" church may split numerous times.

Thus, for instance, the Assyrian Church of the
East (found mainly in northern Iraq, southern
Turkey, Syria, Iran, southwest India, and now the
United States), which has its own rite and inde-
pendent hierarchy, has a Catholic counterpart,
named the Chaldean Catholic Church. The Coptic
Orthodox church of Egypt similarly has several
counterparts, including the Mclkites (in union
with Constantinople), Coptic Catholics (Rome)
and Protestant Coptic (Presbyterian). When, as in
the last example, Protestant churches are included,
the number of churches becomes extraordinarily
difficult to count. In general, however, one can say
that the churches divide as follows: 1) those that
come out of the Assyrian Church of the East; 2)
those that can be called the Orthodox churches of
the East, who recognize the patriarch of Constan-
tinople as primus inter pares (first among equals);
3) the Oriental Orthodox churches, such as the
Coptic and Armenian, which share theological
orientation and mutual recognition; 4) the vari-
ous Catholic churches and Catholic counterparts
of other churches (mainly quite recent in origin);
and 3) Protestants of various denominations.
Depending on how one defines the “Islamic
world,'* there arc as many as 47 million Christians
today living in lands that are Muslim majority
or have been historically vital centers of Islamic
government and civilization, including India. The
largest populations are in Indonesia (19 million),
followed by Sudan (9.3 million) and Egypt (at
least 4.5 million).

Thus, Christians have survived and sometimes
thrived under Muslim rule, and in many cases,
Christians were able to attain positions of great
power and wealth in Muslim-majority lands. Two
periods since the rise of Islam have seen Chris-
tians conquer Muslims within their heartlands.
The first period is that of the Crusades and Recon-
quista. The Crusades were a series of expeditions
(1095-1291) by European Christians to retake
Jerusalem for Christianity and to fight Muslims
in the Holy Land as part of a holy war blessed by
the Catholic pope. The Crusades met with limited

Christianity and Islam 143

success and eventually led to the mobilization of
a Muslim jihad to expel the "Franks/* With their
foreign ways and crudities so acutely observed
by Muslim scholar-warriors such as Usama ibn
Munqidh (d. 1188), the crusaders were always
unlikely to survive, as indeed they did not. The
Reconquista, on the other hand, succeeded in
defeating the Arabo-lslamic statelets that took
root in Andalusia and expelling Muslims and Jews
for whom Andalusia was home. Those who stayed
behind were forced to convert to Christianity.

In the modern period, beginning in the 18th
century, Europeans, mainly Christians, came to
rule over vast territories in which Muslims lived
and that had formerly been ruled by Muslims.
These included much of the Middle East, all of
North Africa west of Egypt, the Indian subcon-
tinent, and almost the entire continent of Africa,
the eastern, western, and northern parts of which
had large Muslim populations. For nearly 200
years, Muslims thus lived either in lands directly
controlled by European countries or in ostensibly
independent nations whose freedom was often
held in check by European power (the Ottoman
Empire, for example, or Iran). In every case, these
colonial empires were undone by the end of World
War II, but their impact remains profoundly felt in
such things as their legal and political institu-
tions, economic orientations, as well as the radical
Islamist ideologies that have developed in part
as a response to the European imperial project.
While the Europeans did not always encourage
missionary efforts, they also did not stop such
activities, and thus one of the main encounters
between Christianity and Islam in the modern
period has been largely destructive. For one thing,
this resulted in mutual animosities and divisions
that have, ironically, made it more difficult (but
not impossible) for Muslims to engage in the kind
of critical examination of religious authority and
knowledge that has had such radical effects on
the relations between religion, society, and the
state in the West. The Europeans often justified
their rule on the basis of their superior scientific

Sc. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai, Egypt. A
mosque minaret stands behind the bell tower. (Juan E.
Campo)

knowledge. The implicit or explicit blaming of
Islam for the "backwardness" of Muslims has both
led to increased Islamic radicalism and to fruitless
apologetics. But this Christian missionary effort
from the West has also made the situation of the
native Christian communities of Muslim-majority
countries more tenuous than it previously was.

Part of the modern condition is the rootless-
ness and change brought about by emigration,
both voluntary and forced. A great many African
Muslims were brought to the New World as
slaves, and the wounds of this (at least partially)
Muslim-Christian encounter have not properly
healed. Voluntary emigration for the sake of eco-
nomic opportunity and religious freedom has also
been a part of the encounter, however, and this

1 44 cinema

has been much more positive. Large communities
in the Americas and even more significant ones
in Europe are having the effect of changing the
way Muslims experience and understand their
religion as well as creating greater opportunity
for interreligious communication and dialogue
(or conflict in some cases). New to interpreting
approaches Islam and interpretations that take
these new experiences into account are enrich-
ing the Muslim intellectual repertoire in ways
that will almost certainly have great impact in
the years to come. In light of this ongoing and
increasing mingling of peoples and religions, a
“clash of civilizations" between Islam and the
West is actually very unlikely, although conflicts
based on specific grievances in Muslim-majority
countries are likely to continue to have an impact
on interreligious relations.

See also colonialism; dhimmi; Europe; Judaism
and Islam; United States; Latin America.

John Iskander

Further reading: Talal Asad. Formations of the Secular:
Christianity , Islam, Modernity (Stanford. Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 2003); Richard W. Bullict, The Case
for Islamo-Christian Civilization (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2006); Norman Daniel, Islam and
the West: The Making of an Image (Oxford: Oncworld.
1993); Hugh Goddard. A History of Christian-Muslim
Relations (Chicago: New Amsterdam Books. 2000);
Tarif Khalidi, The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in
Islamic Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 2001).

cinema

Although motion picture technology first devel-
oped in Europe and the United States during the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, film produc-
tion rapidly became a global phenomenon. It was
first introduced into Muslim lands by Western-
ers, but by the 1930s and 1940s, native entrepre-
neurs had developed their own film industries,
which really began to flourish after World War

II with the rise of newly independent nation-
states. Except for Saudi Arabia, where movie
theaters are banned because of the puritanical
outlook of the Wahhabi Islam practiced there,
the cinema became a popular pastime in many
countries, especially among city dwellers. Egypt,
Iran, and Turkey have become major centers of
film production in the Middle East. Lebanon,
Algeria, Tunisia, Indonesia, and Malaysia have
also developed their own film industries. India,
where secular-minded Muslims are active in the
cinema, produces more films than any country
in the world. The following article discusses the
Arab, Iranian, and Indian cinemas as well as rep-
resentations of Arabs and Muslims in American
and British films.

ARAB CINEMA

Cairo is the Hollywood of the Arab world. Nearly
3,000 films have been produced in Egypt. No other
Arab country comes close to this number. The first
screenings of the French Lumierc brothers’ films
took place in Alexandria in 1896. Egypt began
producing its own films as early as 1909, but film
production during the colonial period was domi-
nated by European capital and often by European
directors as well. Egypt was the only Arab country
to establish a national film industry prior to its
formal independence in 1952. Most other Arab
countries did not develop a national cinema until
the period of decolonization after World War II.

Arab cinema has been greatly influenced by
Hollywood. American-made movies early on cap-
tured local markets in many Arab countries,
Egypt included — as much as 80 percent of the
screen time is monopolized by American film
exports. However, Arab cinema also developed
its own cinematic idioms and cultural nuances
even as it adapted Hollywood plots and churned
out low-budget comedies, musicals, and romantic
dramas. The great Arab comic film actors such as
Egyptians Ismail Yasin and Adel Imam and Syrian
Durayd Laham were masters at slapstick humor,
but they all employed their comic talents in films

.WljifUU vi

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j it f ijis/tJU-S

2,' KtCA&s*

v*W*

Movie billboards in Cairo, Egypt. The billboard on the far left is for At- Mansi (The forgotten one), featuring Adil Imam
and Yusra. (Juan E. Campo)

that had a nationalist edge and socially critical
content, which directly appealed to Arab popular
audiences that had living memories of colonialism
and foreign domination.

Arab cinema also developed a star system.
Popular singers such as Umm Kulthum, Shadya,
and Abd al-Halim Hafiz promoted their musi-
cal artistry through cinema from the late 1930s
through the 1960s and broadened their appeal
throughout the Arab World. Egypt had its equiva-
lent of Marilyn Monroe in Samya Gamal (1960s)
and even its equal to actor-political activist Susan
Sarandon in Yusra, who has fought censorship and
championed Arab causes such as opposing foreign
aggression against Iraq in the 1990s and support-
ing Palestinian rights.

The Arab world has produced an impressive
array of directors who have mastered film lan-
guage in a way that has created a body of serious
artistic production that is of world-class quality.
Perhaps the most renowned of these artist-direc-
tors is Egyptian Youssef Chahine (d. 2008), a
Christian by heritage, whose work in the early
1930s launched the career of Omar Sharif and
who continues to be prolific to this day (Alexan-
dria. . . . New York, 2004). Since the 1980s in the
era of globalization, European financing (espe-
cially French) has lent new life to an ailing Arab
film industry and cultivated talented new direc-
tors such as Yousri Nasrallah (Gate of the Sun,
2004, Egypt), Nouri Bouzid (Man of Ashes, 1986,
Tunisia), Moufida Tlatli (Silence of the Palaces,

146

cinema

1994, Tunisia), and Palestinian Elia Suleiman,
whose film Divine Intervention won the Grand
Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002.

Although Arab cinema, as elsewhere, is pre-
dominantly secular in outlook, Islamic subjects
and themes often do occur in dramas and films
on historical topics. Dramatic films usually affirm
social virtues such as marital fidelity, respect for
the family, charity, making an honest living, and
defending the weak, while they also condemn
immorality and criminal behavior. They include
scenes of people at prayer, reciting the Quran,
visiting mosques or shrines, and celebrating reli-
gious holidays. Moreover, a number of films
have addressed hot-button socioreligious issues
such as polygamy and divorce, criticizing aspects
of Islamic family law as practiced in countries
such as Egypt. Since the 1990s, Islamic radical-
ism has been critically examined in films such as
Nader Galal’s The Terrorist (Egypt, 1994) and Atef
Hetata's Closed Doors (Egypt, 1999). Historical
films have dealt with topics such as the Crusades
(Yousscf Chahincs Al-Nasir Salah al-Din, 1963)
and the lives of famous Muslims, such as Rabia al-
Adawiyya (Egypt, 1935) and Ibn Rushd (Youssef
Chahine’s Destiny , Egypt, 1997).

IRANIAN CINEMA

The advent of cinema in Iran can be traced to the
beginning of the 20th century with the inaugura-
tion of the first movie house in 1907. It was in
the 1930s that cinema became a more serious
enterprise with the establishment of the first
film studio and the release of movies such as The
Brother's Revenge, Abi and Rabi, and the Lor Girl.
During this time, cinema aimed at entertaining
city dwellers and concerned itself with topics
such as the migration of villagers into the city and
the transformation of traditional ethics into bour-
geois values. For instance. Rapacious, released in
1934, was about a peasant who left his wife for
a city woman. This decade witnessed the first
Persian-language sound newsreel with Prime Min-
ister Muhammad Ali Furughi (1887-1942) and

Mustafa Kamal Ataturk (1881-1938). Another
significant production in the 1930s was an adapta-
tion from Ferdawsis national epic the Shahnamah,
“The Book of the Kings," which has traditionally
fostered national pride among Iranians. It is safe
to say that the birth of Iranian cinema is insepara-
ble from the advent of modernity and its cultural
manifestations in Iranian society.

In the next decades, Iranian cinema devel-
oped into a primarily commercial industry with
a limited “art film" cinema that operated in its
shadows. A favorite theme for this commercial
cinema was Iranian patriarchal attitudes toward
life, tradition, and gender. This was expressed in
the genre /i/m jaheli, a genre that was initiated by
Ismail Kushan. In these films, the character of the
working class or petit bourgeoisie was explored
and celebrated. The male protagonist provided a
caricature of the medieval practice of chivalry, in
which honor was based on the chastity of a man's
female relatives (sister, daughter, female cousins,
etc). This theme dominated Iranian cinema of the
1960s. Another important theme at this time was
the relationship between Iranians and Westerners.
Ibram in Paris (1964) highlighted the difference
between Iranians and Europeans.

The intellectual response to this commercial
cinema is not limited to the production of art films.
In 1971, Masoud Kimiai (b. 1941) undertook the
production of Dash Akul , based on a modern clas-
sic short story with the same title by the acclaimed
Iranian prose writer Sadiq Hidayat. The story is a
psychological evaluation of the themes of chivalry,
which arc also expressed in the film’s more commer-
cial counterparts. In the 1960s, other art filmmakers
such as Furugh Farrukhzad (1935-67) and Dary-
ush Mehrjui (b. 1937), inspired by international
cinema, made great contributions in their docu-
mentaries and surrealistic films. These filmmakers,
along with others, developed the New Iranian Cin-
ema as an alternative to commercial cinema.

With the establishment of the Islamic Republic
of Iran in 1979 and its puritanical attitudes toward
the arts, the prospects for Iranian cinema seemed

cinema 1 47

murky and pessimistic. More than half the country's
nearly 500 movie theaters were confiscated or
closed down. Contrary to expectations, however,
Iranian cinema in the past two and a half decades
has developed into an international cinema with
claims on artistic novelty. Today, filmmakers such
as Abbas Kiarostami (b. 1945), Muhsin Makhmal-
baf (b. 1957), and his young daughter Samira are
familiar names to Iranian film viewers across the
globe. Perhaps the religious revolution, followed
by unforeseen conditions of strict censorship and
oppression, actually inspired and compelled the
creative work of these filmmakers and many oth-
ers. The topics explored by the filmmakers of the
post-1979 revolution era tackle the subtleties in the
controversies that define the sociocultural life of
Iranians today, such as war, the relations between
the sexes, and the status of women. Furthermore,
the vital and dynamic relationship between this cin-
ema and its audience abroad has produced a range
of new possibilities for artistic expression that was
not evident in the decades before the revolution.

INDIAN CINEMA

The place Muslims occupy in Indian cinema is
something of a conundrum, reflecting their vexed
affiliations within South Asian modernity. If one
focuses on the supposedly Hindi-language cinema
based in Bombay, it is necessary to underscore the
extensive influence of Urdu literature on both film
dialogue and song lyrics. Before the partition of the
country at the point of its independence from Brit-
ish rule in 1947, Lahore was also an important cen-
ter for the production of Hindi-Urdu films. Already
in the 1940s, Muslim producer-directors such as
A. R. Kardar and Mehboob Khan had come into
prominence in these two centers. As Bombay cin-
ema was securing its genres and audiences and con-
solidating a national cinematic idiom, composers
Ghulam Haider and Naushad were instrumental in
laying down the conventions of a musical style that
became the most identifiable trait of the industry.

The 1940s were also marked by a steady
mounting of communal tensions and brutal riots.

eventually leading to the creation of Pakistan.
In the course of the mayhem, millions of people
became homeless refugees; the early skirmishes
over Kashmir in the late 1940s compounded the
atmosphere of hatred and suspicion. Some Mus-
lim actors took on Hindu names to ensure their
acceptability. Thus, Mumtaz Jchan came to be
known as Madhubala, while Yusuf Khan became
famous as Dilip Kumar. Nargis, on the other hand,
did not suffer any loss of popularity due to her
openly Islamic identity, went on to play the title
role in the landmark film Mother India (1957),
and became a member of parliament in the
1970s. Other luminaries of the Bombay industry,
including Ghulam Haider and singer Nurjehan,
chose to move to Pakistan. Contemporary popular
discourse, for instance in the anglophone maga-
zine Filmindia , reflected the deep anxieties and
ambivalences of a wounded social matrix, mourn-
ing the loss of creative agents and simultaneously
denouncing them for their “betrayal. ”

Muslims who stayed on in India as part of a
minority community faced prejudice and wari-
ness. Even someone as respected as Dilip Kumar
had to contend with aspersions and periodic
witch hunts. The plight of the Muslim citizenry
is thoughtfully documented in M. S. Sathyus
film Garam Haw/a (1973), which, after initial
difficulties with the censors, went on to win the
highest national awards. At the end of this film,
the young protagonist, Salim, chooses to stay
on in India and finds his community in a leftist
group. The narrative resolution clearly upholds
a secular, class-based political agenda over com-
munal politics founded on religious affiliations.
The author of the original story, Ismat Chugtai,
and the scriptwriter, Kaifi Azmi, were both asso-
ciated with the Progressive Writers' Association
and were stalwarts of modern Urdu literature.
Azmi was also responsible for many superb song
lyrics; his daughter, Shabana Azmi, became an
important face of the so-called Indian New Wave
of the 1970s (and is currently the most revered
actress of the Indian screen and a social activist of

1 48 cinema

international repute). Thus, Muslims maintained
a strong creative presence in postpartition Indian
cinema. The late Shahir Ludhianvi continues to be
the most influential lyricist, and the late Moham-
med Rafi remains, arguably, the most beloved
male "playback singer.”

Two major genres have focused primarily on
Muslim life and culture: the Muslim "socials,"
which range from the reformist E laan (1947)
to the swooningly romantic Chaudvin ka Chand
(1960); and spectacular historical, which look
back nostalgically to a glorious Islamic past (the
caliphate, as in Judgment oj Allah 11935); the
Delhi Sultanate, as in Razia Sultan [19831; and
the Mughal Empire, as in Mughal c Azam [ I960]).
In general, though, Muslim characters occupy
peripheral roles in mainstream Bombay films:
as sidekicks, smugglers, pimps, courtesans, and
frequently blind fakirs, or minstrels. Of course,
one can locate a few significant exceptions to this
cinematic marginalization, such as Coolie (1983),
starring the great Amitabh Bachchan.

In the late 1980s, as a resurgent right-wing
nationalism centered on hindutva, or an essential
Hinduncss, gathered force, it became impera-
tive for a relatively new group of filmmakers
to explore the place of the mussalman within
Indian society and polity. Saeed Mirza and Khalcd
Mohammed, for instance, addressed the perplex-
ing question of Muslim-Indian identity in the
aftermath of the destruction of the Babri mosque
in December 1992 by the votaries of hindutva and
the subsequent riots in Bombay in lyrical yet inci-
sive films such as Naseem (1995) and Fiza (2000).
Meanwhile, the community continues to be an
indispensable and enigmatic presence in Bombay
cinema. The three most popular actors of the past
decade — Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Amir
Khan — happen to be Muslims.

MUSLIMS IN BRITISH AND
AMERICAN CINEMA

Arabs and Muslims have been represented in
American and British films since the days of the

silent movies. Although they have been stereo-
typed as villains, they have also been depicted
as romantic leads (The Sheik 1 1921 1), Arabian
Nights heroes (The Thief of Baghdad [1924 and
19401, The Seventh Voyage of Sinhad [19581, and
Aladdin 1 19921 ), victims of prejudice or senseless
warfare (A Passage to India 1 1 984 1 , Three Kings
1 1999)), and harem princesses and bellydanc-
ers (Lost in a Harem , 1944). They have appeared
as important secondary characters in adventure
films such as The Crusades (1935), Lawrence of
Arabia (1961), and Robin Hood: Prince oj Thieves
(1991). The depictions of Arabs and Muslims in
these films often conform to romantic Western
stereotypes about peoples of the Orient that
began in the 19th century. In the late 1970s and
1980s, as the Middle East became a major focal
point of American interests and suffered several
intense regional wars, Arabs and Muslims began
to be increasingly dehumanized and portrayed
as terrorists, kidnappers, and greedy and cor-
rupt OIL shaykhs. This is evident in such films as
Protocol (1984), Delta Force (1986), Not without
My Daughter (1990), Navy SEALs (1990), and
True Lies (1994). However, there have also been
a few English-language international films that
present more favorable views of Arabs and Mus-
lims, such as The Message (1976), an account
of the life of Muhammad, and Lion of the Desert
(1981), about the Libyan resistance to Italian
occupation during the 1930s. These were both
produced by Moustapha Akkad (d. 2005), a Syr-
ian filmmaker.

See also Hinduism and Islam; Orientalism.

Juan E. Campo, Firoozeh Papan-Matin (Iranian
cinema), Garay Menicucci (Arab cinema),
Bhaskar Sarkar (Indian cinema)

Further reading: General : Roy Amies, Third World Film
Making and the West (Berkeley: University of California
Press. 1987); John C. Eisele, “The Wild East: Decon-
structing the Language of Genre in the Hollywood
Eastern.’* Cinema Journal 41, 4 (2002): 68-94; Jack
G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a

circumcision 1 49

People (New York: Olive Branch Press, 2001); Arab Cin-
ema : Walter Armbrust, Mass Culture and Modernism in
Egypt, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996);
Ibrahim Fawal, Youssef Chahine (London: BF1 Publica-
tions, 2001); Viola Shafik, Arab Cinema: History and
Cultural Identity (Cairo: American University in Cairo
Press, 1998); Iranian Cinema : Hamid Dabashi. Close
Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, and Future (New York:
Verso, 2001); Richard Tapper, ed.. The New Iranian
Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity (London:
I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2002); Indian Cinema : Akbar
S. Ahmed, "Bombay Films: The Cinema for Indian
Society and Politics.” Modern Asian Studies 26 (1992):
289-320; Tejaswini Ganti, Bollywood: A Guidebook to
Popular Hindi Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2004);
Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willcmen, Encyclopedia
of Indian Cinema, 2d cd. (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1999).

circumcision (Arabic: khitan for males;
khafd for females; tahara for both males
and females)

Male circumcision is a surgical procedure that
involves removing the foreskin of the penis. It
has been widely practiced among indigenous
tribal peoples of Africa and Australia and among
members of specific religious communities, espe-
cially Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Today many
people think it is done for purposes of hygiene,
but this explanation is disputed, and it does not
withstand empirical scrutiny in most instances.
Ethnographic evidence suggests that, in fact, it
is performed for various reasons, depending on
context. In many tribal societies, it is done at
puberty as a male rite of passage into adulthood.
In biblical tradition, circumcision is the sign of
a covenant (contract) between God, Abraham,
and his descendants, the Hebrews. In Islam, male
circumcision is almost universally practiced as a
form of bodily purification. Only in some Mus-
lim cultures is it a rite of passage to adulthood.
Also, in contrast to the Judaic form, it is never
mentioned in the Muslim holy book, the Quran,

nor is it considered to be the sign of a covcnantal
relationship between God and Muslims.

Scholars have found evidence that Arabs prac-
ticed circumcision before Islam's appearance and
think that it later continued as an accepted practice
in the early Muslim community. This explanation
by itself does not account for the persistence of the
custom nor its acceptance by non-Arab Muslims,
who now constitute perhaps 80 percent of the
worlds Muslim population. Although circumcision
is not mentioned in the Quran, it is mentioned in
the hadith, oral reports about what Muhammad and
his companions said and did that were transmitted,
collected, and studied by pious Muslims in order
help regulate Muslim affairs in the newly emerg-
ing Islamic empire. What the hadith do is establish
male circumcision as an acceptable Muslim prac-
tice. According to one hadith, circumcision is one
of five acts (along with trimming the mustache,
shaving pubic hair, plucking hair from the arm
pits, and clipping fingernails) for which humans
have a natural predisposition ( fitra ). Other hadiths
report that Abraham, the sacred ancestor of Jews,
Christians, and Muslims, had circumcised him-
self. In the context of the sharia, Muslim jurists
have ruled that it is either a required (w ajib) or a
recommended practice (sunna). In legal manuals,
it is treated as a form of ritual purification, called
tahara, that puts the body of the individual into the
proper condition for worship.

Circumcision is performed by doctors at birth
in hospitals and clinics today, but in many Mus-
lim cultures a barber traditionally performs it at
some time between the seventh day after birth and
puberty, depending on local practice. In Turkey,
there are clinics where circumcisers are trained
in the appropriate surgical techniques, and boys
are circumcised at the age of six or seven. Large
family celebrations with feasting, music, Quran
recitation, and visits to nearby saint shrines often
accompany the event. In cases in which the family
has a limited income, the circumcision celebration
may be combined with a marriage ceremony so
as to minimize expenses. The circumcision may

'CsS=5 1 50 cities

even he called a “wedding" or be understood as a
milestone on the road to marriage. Uncircumcised
converts to Islam may be required to be circum-
cised, but there are different opinions about this.

Female circumcision, or clitoridectomy, is
called “female genital mutilation" (FGM) by
human rights advocates because of the physical
and emotional damage it can do to the patient.
It is not as widely practiced among Muslims as is
male circumcision, but it appears to be an ancient
custom that is especially prevalent in sub-Saharan
and northeast Africa. Christians and followers of
other religions in that region as well as Muslims
practice it. The minimal form of female circum-
cision, which is ruled to be obligatory by some
Muslim jurists, involves removal of the tip of the
clitoris. There are more extreme forms, however,
that involve the entire female genital area. These
procedures are not endorsed by most jurists
and appear to be governed by local customs.
Midwives, barbers, and female healers usually
perform female circumcision with the approval of
female relatives of the patient. Infection rates are
high, and there can be serious complications. Like
male circumcision, the procedure is considered
by its practitioners to be a kind of purification
that helps prepare girls for their eventual mar-
riage. Unlike male circumcision, however, it is not
accompanied by large family celebrations.

See also birth rites; women.

Further reading: Abu Bakr Abd al-Razzaq, Circumci-
sion in Islam. Translated by Aisha Bewley (London:
Dar al-Taqwa, 1998); John G. Kennedy, “Circumcision
and Excision Ceremonies." In Nubian Ceremonial Life,
edited by John G. Kennedy, 151-170 (Cairo: American
University in Cairo Press, 1978); Nahid Touba, Female
Genital Mutilation: A Call for Global Action (New York:
Women, Inc., 1993).

cities

The history of Islam as a religion and a civilization
is one that is centered on urban life and institu-

tions, contrary to stereotypes that exaggerate the
importance of deserts and nomadic pastoralism.
Muslims based their first empires in the same
lands where the ancient Mesopotamians and
Egyptians built the first cities in history and where
Hellenistic cities flourished after the conquests of
Alexander the Great in the fourth century b.c.e.
The lives of Muhammad and the first Muslims
were lived primarily in the towns of Mecca and
Medina, located in the Hijaz region of the arid
Arabian Peninsula. The impact of these two cities
on Islam is reflected in the Quran itself, which
distinguishes between Meccan and Medinan chap-
ters. Mecca's importance is also underscored in the
Five Pillars of Islam, which require that Muslims
face toward that city's Sacred Mosque when they
do their daily prayers and that they must perform
the hajj there at least once in their lifetimes if they
are able.

During their early conquests, Arab Muslim
armies occupied ancient cities and towns of the
Middle East, such as Jerusalem, Damascus, and
Aleppo in Syria, Alexandria in Egypt, Nishapur
and Balkh in Iran, and Samarqand in Central
Asia. They did the same when they penetrated the
Iberian Peninsula, where they settled in the old
Roman cities of Cordoba, Seville, and Granada.
In many regions of the empire, they built new
garrison towns, some of which grew into major
urban centers such as Fustat in Egypt, Tunis and
Fez in North Africa, Basra and Kufa in Iraq, and
Shiraz in Iran. They built the legendary city of
Baghdad in Iraq in the eighth century, and later,
when Muslim armies invaded northern India in
the 12th century, they founded the fortress city
of Delhi. All of these cities served as important
political, cultural, religious, and economic cen-
ters. People of different ethnicities, religions, and
social classes interacted in them on a daily basis.

In an important 10th-century topographic
encyclopedia, al-Muqaddasi (also known as al-
Maqdisi, d. ca. 990) described hundreds of cities
and towns in Muslim lands from Andalusia to
Central Asia. These urban systems were con-

cities 1 51

nected by trade routes that spanned mountains,
deserts, river lands, and sometimes seas, forming
complex spatial hierarchies, organized vertically
from the local fortress or commercial center to
the district capital, the provincial capital, and
transrcgional metropolis. Some of these cities
had specialized functions, such as the holy cities
of Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Karbala; the
commercial centers of Aleppo (in Syria) and Fus-
tat; and the palace cities of Baghdad, Samarra (in
Iraq), Cairo, and Madinat al-Zahra (next to Cor-
doba). A number of cities became famous as cen-
ters of learning and scholarship, such as Baghdad,
Nishapur, Cairo, and Cordoba. Najaf in Iraq and
Qumm in Iran became major centers of learning
for the Shia. All cities were dependent on nearby
agricultural lands and water systems, and they
benefited from symbiotic relations with Bedouin
and other nomadic peoples who provided pasto-
ral animal products, caravan transport, and often
warriors for the army. Urban populations varied
in size from a few thousand for the smaller settle-
ments to nearly a million in medieval Baghdad,
Cairo, and Cordoba at their height, far exceeding
the populations of European cities at the time.
Famines, plagues, droughts, wars, and invasions
severely affected city life, causing population
levels to fluctuate; smaller towns and cities were
often abandoned in such situations. Ibn Khaldun
(d. 1406), the famous medieval philosopher of
history, pointed out that city dwellers became
unhealthy because of their luxurious diets and
lack of exercise compared to nomadic peoples,
who were more abstemious and physically fit.

Typical features in the medieval Islamicate
urban landscape were the Friday mosque, per-
manent marketplace, palace complex or fortress,
public bath, and residential quarters. Other impor-
tant architectural features were shrines containing
relics of holy men and women, public fountains,
caravanserais, religious colleges, and Sufi hos-
pices. Most cities also had non-Muslim religious
structures such as churches and synagogues.
Streets were typically narrow and winding. Cem-

eteries were usually located on the outer edges
of the inhabited areas. Unlike the Greco-Roman
Hellenistic cities that preceded them, Islamicate
cities did not have theaters, coliseums, or gridlike
street patterns.

Cities in Muslim lands have undergone major
transformations in the modern era. Colonization
resulted in the creation of European-stylc quarters
and suburbs that contrasted greatly with the old
medieval cities. New street patterns, architectural
styles, and building materials were introduced by
colonial architects and native ones who emulated
the West. Electric lighting, motorized transport,
and modern communications enhanced the qual-
ity of life for many urban dwellers during the
20th century. Several of these cities, such as Cairo,
Istanbul, and New Delhi have become cosmo-
politan centers of global reach and importance,
where modern skyscrapers stand next to medieval
heritage sites and buildings displaying modern
revivals of traditional architectural styles. On the
other hand, new educational and employment
opportunities, improved health services, land
reform, and mechanization have resulted in major
population shifts from the countryside to the city.
As a consequence, urban populations increased
dramatically during the latter part of the 20th cen-
tury, placing great strains on the urban infrastruc-
ture and city services. Millions of people living in
densely populated urban shanty towns attached to
the older quarters or juxtaposed to upper-income
and business districts find themselves faced with
low incomes or no jobs, substandard housing and
infrastructure, and poor schooling and health
care. These slums can be found in such major
cities as Rabat (Morocco), Cairo, Beirut, Baghdad,
Tehran, Karachi, and Dhaka and contribute to
the population of disaffected youths who become
recruits for Islamic organizations and extremist
movements.

The metropolitan areas with the largest popu-
lations in Muslim countries today are greater
Cairo (est. 16.8 million, 2008), Jakarta (Indone-
sia) (13.1 million, 2005), Dhaka (Bangladesh)

<c ^ 1 52 citizenship

(12.5 million, 2005), Karachi (Pakistan) (11.8
million, 2005), Istanbul (Turkey) (9.8 million,
2005), and Tehran (Iran) (8.6 million, 2005).

See also architecture; bazaar; camel; cem-
etery; colonialism; houses; madrasa.

Further reading: Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab
Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1991), 109-146; F E. Peters, Jerusalem and Mecca: The
Typology of the Holy City in the East (New York: New York
University Press, 1986); Shams al-Din al-Muqaddasi (al-
Maqdisi), The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions,
trans. Basil A. Collins (Reading, U.K.: Garnet, 2001);
Paul Wheatley, The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cit-
ies in Islamic Lands, Seventh through the Tenth Centuries
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001)

citizenship

The idea that identity is inextricably linked with a
given territory or land develops with the appear-
ance of the modern nation-state of 17th-century
Europe. Being French or Spanish, for example,
began to reflect not only a certain lineage or a
set of cultural habits, but most importantly the
simple fact of having been born in a given geo-
graphic space. As the model of the modern state
spread to other parts of the world through Euro-
pean colonization of parts of Africa, Asia, and the
entire Western hemisphere, traditional identities
and affiliations began to change. This is especially
true in lands where the majority of inhabitants
were Muslim. In fact, the effects of changing
identities and affiliations in the Muslim lands
brought by colonialism are still felt today, as seen
in the transnational composition of many Islamist
movements. Central to these changes is the idea of
citizenship, or the bestowal of an official national
identity on an individual by a government.

Prior to the postcolonial states found in many
parts of the Muslim world, identity hinged on
kinship relations and the idea of the umma, or the
community of Muslims. For the majority Sunni
Muslims, after Muhammad's death in 632 a caliph

led the community, at least symbolically, until the
office's abolition in 1924. Regardless of where an
individual is born or what language they speak,
as long as they are born as a Muslim or convert
to Islam they are part of the umma. Historically,
in most cases only members of the umma were
subject to Islamic law, even if non-Muslims — or
dhimmis — lived in areas ruled by Muslim lead-
ers. Otherwise, non-Muslims, and particularly
Jews, Christians, and in some cases Hindus, lived
according to their own legal traditions. Although
a territorial element can be found in the Islamic
legal designations dar al-Islam (abode of Islam)
and dar al-harb (abode of war), these came into
effect only when Muslims came into contact with
large non-Muslim populations, such as occurred
through conquest or trade. Individual identity,
however, depended on one's religious affiliation.
As bounded political territories, modern states
of the Muslim world in general and, more par-
ticularly, the idea of citizenship, changed not only
local political organization but also grounds for
legal AUTHORITY and for individual identity.

See also dar al-Islam and dar al-harb; law,

INTERNATIONAL.

Caleb Elfcnbein

Further reading: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Commu-
nities (New York: Verso, 1991); John L. Esposito, Islam:
The Straight Path (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998); Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991).

civil society

Civil society is located between the intimate-pri-
vate spheres of familial life and the various organs
of the state: administrative, legislative, judicial,
and economic. In large measure, it is beholden
to those selfsame institutions, for the state serves
to “frame" or structure social relations outside
its immediate purview (for example, through the
legal system). The nature, complexity, and differ-
entiation of power relations, nodes, and networks

civil society 1 53

account for the ongoing interdependence between
the state and civil society. The institutions, associ-
ations, organizations, gathering places, and social
movements on the terrain of civil society act as a
kind of schoolhouse for democracy or as a dress
rehearsal for more traditional forms of politi-
cal participation. While authoritarian regimes
routinely attempt to “depoliticize" or “privatize’'
relations within society, the modern state finds
it difficult to implement this divide-to-conquer
strategy. It does not have the capacity to become
truly totalitarian, to manipulate and control the
entire spectrum of activities and dialogue consti-
tutive of the various “publics" in civil society.

The moral, political, and cultural capacities of
actors in civil society are based on norms of trust,
reciprocity, friendship, commitment, and the like
that are metaphorically termed “social capital.”
The strength and circulation of this social capital
signals both the desire and potential for democra-
tization and may be the very locus of “democracy"
in societies with governments that suffer from
democracy deficits.

In the Middle East, civil society consists of
“a melange of associations, clubs, guilds, syn-
dicates, federations, unions, parties and groups
[that) come together to provide a buffer between
state and citizen.” (Norton, 1:7). Professional
associations of doctors, lawyers, engineers, and
teachers are particularly strong in Egypt, Tunisia,
Morocco, Sudan, and among the Palestinians.
These syndicates are often the leading edge of
civil society owing to the high level of education,
political awareness, and financial resources of
their members. In Egypt, members of the Muslim
Brotherhood are elected majorities on the boards
of most ol these associations.

Among the Arab Gulf States, Kuwait's civil
society deserves mention, with its fairly free
press, professional associations, and cultural
clubs. In particular, the reception areas ( diwani -
yyah ) in peoples' homes function as gathering
places where men socialize and discuss a variety
of topics, political and otherwise. Kuwaiti women

have started their own diwaniyyahs, and it was
the diwaniyyah that gave birth to the country's
prodemocracy movement in the 1990s. While
Kuwait's constitution provides the framework for
its civil society, the state has never recognized
independent voluntary organizations. Turkey,
with its secular state, has a yet more energetic
civil society, much of it Islamic. Still, its Islamist
members possess “contradictory motivations and
goals and sometimes radically differing interpre-
tations of fundamental religious principles and
political platforms" (White, 6). When the Turk-
ish military regime crushed the left in the early
1980s, Muslim activists filled the void; they con-
ducted charitable, humanitarian, and educational
projects while agitating for economic and social
justice. The electoral success of the Islamic Jus-
tice and Development Party provides evidence of
the ability of Muslims to effectively organize and
mobilize others in civil society.

Finally, note should be made o( the attraction
of militant Islamist groups such as Hizbullah and
Hamas. These groups draw young recruits and
galvanize popular support for several reasons, not
the least of which is their “provision of substan-
tial social services and charitable activities, from
education to housing and financial support of the
members of families killed, wounded, or detained
by authorities." (Esposito and Burgat, 76)

See also authority; constitution.

Patrick O'Donnell

Further reading: John L. Esposito and Francois Burgat,
cds.. Modernizing Islam: Religion in the Public Sphere
in Europe and the Middle East (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 2003); John Keane, Civil Soci-
ety: Old Images , Nov Visions (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1998); Augustus Richard Norton, ed.,
Civil Society in the Middle East. 2 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1995-1996); Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization in
Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 2002); Carrie Rosefsky Wickham,
Mobilizing Islam: Religious Activism and Political Change
in Egypt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

'CSS^!

1 54 clitoridectomy

clitoridectomy See circumcision.

coffee

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed
brewed beverages in the world today, especially by
adults. It is a stimulating drink made from husks
and kernels obtained from berries of the coffee
tree that are dried, roasted, ground, mixed with
water, and then lightly boiled. Its story is inter-
woven with the history of Islamic religion, the
cultures of the Middle East and Africa, and their
early encounters with modern Europe. The story
is partly reflected in the English word coffee itself,
which came into the language in the 17th century
from Arabic qahwa by way of Turkish kahveh (the
Arabic letter w is pronounced as a v in Turkish).
The word cafe came into English via Arabic, Turk-
ish, and then French. Even the scientific name
for the tree that produces the most commonly
used coffee berry, Coffea Arabica , suggests the
beverages historical connection to the Arabian
Middle East. The tree was originally native to
Ethiopia in Northeast Africa, but it began to be
cultivated in Arabia during the 14th or 15th cen-
tury. In order to better understand the history of
coffee, one must trace how a berry native to Africa
came to be cultivated and used by Arabs to make
a tasty beverage called qahwa, which then became
a favorite drink in Ottoman Turkey and Europe,
and then a global commodity grown in tropical
regions of Southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean,
and especially in Latin America (the center of cof-
fee production today).

There are several imaginative accounts about
the discovery of coffee. The most familiar tale
among Europeans and Americans is that of the
Ethiopian goatherd who one day observed his
goats dancing about after eating coffee berries. He
tried the beans himself, found them to be invigo-
rating, and shared his discovery with a “monk,"
who then roasted them and concocted a brew that
allowed him and other monks to stay awake for
their nightly prayers. A more historically valid

account is provided by Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, a
16th-century Muslim jurist, in a book he wrote
about coffee drinking. He mentioned reports about
a 15th-century Sufi shaykh known as al-Dhabhani
from Yemen who observed people using qahwa
for medicinal purposes during a visit to Ethio-
pia. Upon returning to Yemen, he also benefited
from using it, and he recommended it as a bever-
age to his Sufi brothers. They found that it gave
them more vigor and helped them stay awake on
nights when they had long prayer vigils and dhikr
rituals. There are yet more accounts about coffee's
origins, but they generally agree that cultivating
and drinking it began with the Sufis of Yemen.
By 1511, it had reached the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina, and then Yemeni Sufis introduced it
to students and scholars at al-Azhar in Cairo. In
the mid- 1500s, coffee became a popular beverage
in the cities of Syria and Turkey, especially in the
Ottoman capital, Istanbul. It later reached Iraq,
Iran, and India with the help of pilgrims returning
home from the hajj to Mecca.

The coffee prepared in most of the Middle East
is served very black with the grounds still in it;
they are allowed to settle to the bottom of the cup
before drinking. The first places to serve it to pay-
ing customers appear to have been taverns where
wine was also available. In the 16th and 17th
centuries, it began to be served at coffeehouses
and streetsidc stalls in many Middle Eastern cit-
ies, where European travelers first began to notice
it. According to an 18th-century French travel
account, “All sorts of people come to these places,
without distinction of religion or social position;
there is not the slightest bit of shame in entering
such a place, and many go there simply to chat
with one another" (Mattox, 94). Storytellers and
poets entertained coffeehouse customers with folk
tales and epics about famous Muslim warriors
or, in the case of Iran, Persian kings and princes.
Today Middle Eastern men still frequent neighbor-
hood coffeehouses to do business; join friends to
play cards, backgammon, and chess; listen to the
radio; and watch soccer matches on television. At

colonialism 1 55

home, Middle Eastern women prepare and serve
coffee to guests and friends. Also, in almost any
gathering of women, there are several who offer
to tell friends' fortunes by reading the patterns of
the fine black coffee sediment created when the
empty cups are turned upside down, then right
side up again.

Some Muslim religious and political authori-
ties attempted to either outlaw coffee drinking or
close coffeehouses as they became more and more
popular in the 16th century. There were suspi-
cions that coffee was an intoxicating beverage and
that it should therefore be banned like alcoholic
drinks, which are forbidden according to Islamic
dietary laws. Religious conservatives also wanted
it banned because they believed it was a harmful
innovation (b/daa), not explicitly permitted by
the Quran and hadith. Coffeehouses were suspect
because immoral activities reportedly occurred
there. Also, some government officials became
concerned because of the seditious talk and plots
that might be hatched when men gathered to drink
coffee. None of these efforts to prohibit coffee suc-
ceeded, however, as any visitor to the Middle East
today can see with his or her own eyes.

The coffee trade was originally in the hands
of Muslim merchants working out of the port of
Mocha (al-Mukha) in Yemen, from which the best
coffees originally came. Some types of coffee still
carry the name mocha. Before the end of the 18th
century, two things happened to end the Muslim
monopoly on coffee cultivation and trade. First,
the Europeans had not only acquired a taste for
coffee themselves, but they had successfully intro-
duced coffee cultivation to their colonies in the
New World and tropical Asia. Muslim merchants
lost access to the European market, and they had
to compete against the lower prices offered by
European merchants. Second, more and more of
the worlds maritime commercial traffic fell into
the hands of Europeans; even the port of Mocha
was opened to Dutch, French, and British sail-
ing vessels. Although coffee is still produced in
Yemen, most of the coffee consumed in the Middle

Umm Kulthoum Cafe, Cairo, Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

East and other parts of the world comes from
Latin America (especially Brazil). Coffee drink-
ing in the United States began in the days of the
British colonies, but it did not become a popular
beverage until after the Boston Tea Party of 1773,
when Americans boycotted British tea and drank
coffee instead.

See also FOOD AND DRINK; SUFISM.

Further reading: Eric Hansen. “Yemen’s Well-Traveled
Bean." Saudi Aramco World 48, no. 5 (September/Octo-
ber 1997): 2-9; Ralph S. Hatlox, Coffee and Coffeehouses:
The Origin of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985); Ben-
nett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer. The World
of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the Worlds Most
Popular Drug (New York: Routledge, 2001).

colonialism

Colonialism is a historical process whereby one
state subdues another state or territory for politi-
cal and economic advantage. In addition to the
use of armed force, colonialism usually involves
the establishment of a colonial government and
migration to the new territories by settlers who
occupy the most productive land and control
important sectors of the region’s society and

1 56 colonialism

economy. Ancient empires such as those of Greece
and Rome engaged in colonial practices, and
so did medieval ones, including the Islamicate
empires. But historians more often associate colo-
nialism with the establishment of modern Euro-
pean empires around the world between the 16th
and 20th centuries. Colonial acts of conquest and
exploitation of foreign lands and peoples have
been justified by colonizers in terms of higher
principles or values, such as a “civilizing mis-
sion” or a “white mans burden" to improve life
for colonized people, reason (over tradition and
superstition), and liberty from despotism. As a
consequence, colonized peoples may find them-
selves driven out of their homelands, absorbed
into the new colonial order, or compelled to adopt
anticolonial and revolutionary strategics of resis-
tance. In colonial contexts, religion has proven to
be a tool for both the colonizing powers, who use
it to convert and control their colonial subjects,
and their indigenous supporters and opponents,
who find it a source of strength and inspiration in
defense of their values and ways of life.

In Muslim lands, colonization occurred when
successive waves of European explorers, sol-
diers, merchants, administrators, and missionar-
ies arrived between the 16th and 20th centuries.
Superior weapons technology helped facilitate
their colonial undertakings. By the mid-20th cen-
tury, some 90 percent of the Muslim world had
fallen under direct colonial control. People living
in other regions, such as the Hijaz in western Ara-
bia, Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan, witnessed
indirect forms of European colonial involvement.
Aside from the conquest of Andalusia in the 15th
century, one of the earliest instances of coloniza-
tion occurred when the army of the Russian czar
overran the Tatar khanate (principality) of Kazan
on the Volga River in 1552. Tatar Muslims were
uprooted from their homes, fertile lands were
transferred to Russian settlers, and the region was
opened to evangelization by Orthodox Christian
missionaries. The conquest of other Muslim ter-
ritories in Astrakhan and western Siberia soon fol-

lowed. By the end of the 19th century, the Russian
empire had extended its control to the Caucasus
and Central Asia.

Many European powers competed with each
other to establish colonies in Muslim lands.
After Napoleon tried and failed to establish a
French presence in Egypt in 1798, the French
turned to North Africa, where Algeria, Tunisia,
and Morocco became French colonial territories
between 1830 and 1900. By 1914, France had won
footholds in western and equatorial Africa. The
English East India Company, a merchant venture,
was the instrument by which Great Britain was
able to gain nearly total hegemony in South Asia
(greater India and Sri Lanka) and the Persian Gulf
by the end of the 19th century. The British Crown
established direct rule in India after smashing
the uprising of 1857, and it created protectorates
with all the major Gulf States (excluding Iran) by
1900. Britain occupied Egypt in 1882 to guarantee
access to the newly constructed Suez Canal, its
lifeline to India. In 1914, Nigeria became a British
colony and protectorate, as did part of the Horn
of Africa. At the end of World War 1, France and
Britain took control of former Ottoman territories
in Syria and Iraq, including what is now Lebanon,
Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. Not to be outdone,
Italy attempted to establish colonial footholds in
Libya and the Horn of Africa in the 1930s, but
these efforts were cut short by World War II.

Desire to control the spice trade drew both
Britain and the Netherlands to Southeast Asia
in the 17th century. After first obtaining trading
privileges from local Muslim rulers, they com-
peted with each other to monopolize the region's
economic and political affairs. The Dutch com-
pleted their hegemony over what is now Indo-
nesia during the 18th century, while the British
colonized the Malay Peninsula in the 19th cen-
tury. The Spanish, following upon the success of
their New World conquests, began colonizing the
Philippines in the late 16th century. They halted
the lslamization this island region was undergo-
ing at that time and retained the Philippines as a

colonialism 1 57

Crown colony until it became a possession of the
United States in 1898.

It is difficult to overestimate how deeply Euro-
pean colonialism changed life wherever it reached
in the world. Native and traditional forms of gov-
ernment, subsistence, commerce, and education
were replaced and transformed. Social institutions
and cultural practices were reshaped and often
redefined in new frameworks of thought and action
acquired from the West. Western powers such as
the French attempted to rule their colonies with
their own administrators, as the Spanish and British
had done in the New World. Greatly outnumbered
by the African and Asian populations, however,
Europeans realized that they would have to shift to
a policy of ruling in cooperation with native lead-
ers. This is the way the British governed India and
Egypt. Native elites served as bridgeheads for intro-
ducing Western reforms into their countries and
for transferring natural resources and wealth away
from them. They were educated in local schools
featuring new Western curricula, and they studied
abroad in European schools and academies. Such
changes caused deep cleavages in colonial societies,
which were once defined by close ties of language,
kinship, reciprocity, and patronage. Colonial cities
such as Cairo, Fez, and New Delhi reflected these
new divisions in their layouts. Traditional residen-
tial and commercial quarters were separated from
and surpassed by new urban districts with their
European-style buildings and broad boulevards.
Indigenous peoples nevertheless benefited from
colonization as health and housing conditions
improved, new employment opportunities arose,
and literacy spread from the select few to the
populace at large. Such developments helped pave
the way for participation of more people in public
life and self-governance.

Colonialism also had a marked impact on
Islam. Muslim religious leaders led anticolonial
resistance movements in French Algeria, the Rus-
sian Empire's Caucasus region, Dutch Indonesia,
the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, British Somalia, and
Italian Libya. These movements failed in the short

run, but they were incorporated into the histories
of the nation-states that emerged in the formerly
colonized territories during the 20th century.
Pan-Islamism, an attempt to reunite Muslims
under a revived Ottoman caliphate in the late
19th century, was another way in which Muslims
attempted to oppose colonial incursions into their
territories. This movement died when the caliph-
ate was officially abolished by the secular govern-
ment of the new Republic of Turkey in 1924. One
of the most famous modern Islamic movements
was the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. It began
as a social and religious revitalization movement
in 1928, but it became a militant opponent of
the British and Zionist Jews who created Israel in
1948. The brotherhood joined with secular Arab
nationalists to overthrow the British-backed mon-
archy in 1953, which resulted in the creation of
the Egyptian Republic.

The success of European colonization —
together with the decline of the Ottoman, Persian,
and Mughal Empires — created a sense of crisis in
Muslim societies. The age-old privileges of their
religious authorities, the ulama, were undermined
by the creation of secular schools, the spread of
literacy and European languages, and the introduc-
tion of Western law codes bypassing the SHARIA. In
response, religious revival and reform movements,
supported and led by the ulama, swept through
much of the Muslim world. Revivalists sought to
uphold and defend essential Islamic teachings,
emphasizing literalistic interpretations of the Quran
and hadith, together with adherence to the Five
Pillars, family law, and other prescribed religious
practices. Meanwhile, reform-minded modernists,
often with the approval of colonial authorities,
sought to demonstrate that Islam conformed to the
principles of Western reason and science. Revival-
ists and reformers alike declared war on religious
beliefs and practices they considered to be corrupt
innovations (bjdaa) and superstitions. For many of
them, this meant turning against popular Sufism
and the worship of saints. It also meant questioning
the validity of traditional fiqh (jurisprudence), and

1 58 comic strips and comic books

turning to ijtihad (individual legal reasoning) for
the interpretation of Islam's legal requirements and
prohibitions. Such developments not only helped
Muslims adapt to the rapid changes their societies
were undergoing, but they also helped defend them
from Christian missionaries and foreign governors
who wanted to convert and rule them.

None of these developments escaped notice of
the Europeans. A new branch of knowledge about
Middle Eastern and Islamicate societies called Ori-
entalism was born in the colonial era. It involved
the study of the languages, institutions, history, and
religions of colonized subjects in order to under-
stand them and govern them more effectively. In
India, the British studied Muslim and Hindu laws
in order to codify them and use them to help
administer the country. The French collected
extensive information about Sufi brotherhoods in
North Africa in order to identify resistance lead-
ers and enlist cooperation of religious authorities.
Likewise, the Dutch monitored the flow of Indo-
nesian pilgrims to and from Mecca, suspecting
they were involved in anticolonial movements.
The scientific study of the Middle East and Islam,
however, was not only for the pragmatic purpose
of colonial governance. It also was driven by a
curiosity about the origins of Western civilization.
Gaining knowledge about the Orient was a way for
Europeans to create knowledge about themselves
and, aided by theories of race and civilizational
progress, to represent themselves as better and as
more advanced than non-Europeans.

The golden age of European colonialism was
brought to an end in 1945 by World War II,
which had devastated the populations of Europe
and loosened the hold of the colonial powers over
African, Asian, and Middle Eastern peoples. Nev-
ertheless, colonialism has left a profound imprint
on the world and on Muslims, one that is still very
much in evidence in the early 21st century. Many
Muslims today consider themselves to be citizens
of nation-states that were created in the 20th
century, and the boundary lines that define these
countries were drawn by the colonial powers or

by native elites to whom they delivered the reigns
of government. Moreover, many of the major
conflicts that have shaken the world since 1945
have roots in the colonial era: the Arab-Israeli
conflicts, wars between India and Pakistan, and
the Gulf wars involving Iraq and Iran. It is also
widely recognized that the currents of religious
radicalism, reform, and revival present in Muslim
societies today were born during that era. Today
the economic life and security of many of the
former colonized regions remain dependent upon
Europe and the United States as well as multina-
tional corporations. Some historians and political
scientists have therefore coined the term neocolo-
nialism to describe the new system of global and
international relations that emerged during the
cold war (post-1945). The invasion of Iraq by
the United States and Britain in 2003 is but one
example of this new form of international power
relations, and it has already demonstrated an
impact on political Islam and the ways Muslims
understand and practice their religion.

See also Afghani, Jamal al-Din al-; Ahmad
Khan, Sayyid; Christianity and Islam; civil soci-
ety; Deoband; education; Islamism; politics and
Islam; renewal and reform movements; Wah-
habism.

Further reading: Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab
Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1991); Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western
Footprints and Americas Perilous Path in the Middle East
(Boston: Beacon Press. 2004); Charles Kurzman, ct al.,
eds. Modernist Islam, circa 1840-1940: A Sourcebook
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Thomas
Metcalf. Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998); Michael Rywkin, ed., Russian
Colonial Expansion to 1 91 7 (London: Mansell Publish-
ing, 1988).

comic strips and comic books

Comic strips are a popular art form consisting of a
sequence of framed cartoons that tell a story, usu-

comic strips and comic books 1 59

ally accompanied by speech bubbles and narrative
text boxes. Comic books are expanded versions
of comic strips published as a magazine or book.
The publication of comic strips began in Germany
and the United States in the latter part of the 19th
century. Mass-market production of comic strips
and comic books first began to prosper in the
United States during the 1930s. Many countries
around the world also developed this form of
popular literature during the last century, includ-
ing Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. It has spread
widely because of the growth of print culture,
increased literacy rates, demand for popular forms
of entertainment, and development of a global
consumer economy. From the beginning, comics
have been created for both CHILDREN and adults,
but the popularity of adult comics increased dur-
ing the closing decades of the 20th century.

Comics are popular in the Middle East and
elsewhere where there arc large Muslim popula-
tions. Illustrated book manuscripts were produced
in Islamicate societies during the Middle Ages that
contained pictures of animals, heroic warriors,
holy figures, mythological creatures, ANGELS, and
other extraordinary beings. These books were
created by professional calligraphers and paint-
ers who worked for a few powerful and wealthy
patrons and did not enjoy widespread circulation.
The introduction of comics in the modern sense
did not occur until the 20th century as a result
of European influence in Muslim lands. In the
Middle East, most early comics were in English
and French, but by the mid-1960s they began to
be rendered in local languages, such as Arabic.
Disney cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse
and Donald Duck became popular in the Arab
world with the publication of the weekly Egyptian
comic magazine M iki. It was not long before these
characters were adapted to native cultures and
shown wearing galabias (Egyptian-style robes),
carrying prayer beads, and celebrating Ramadan.
Likewise, Supermans alter ego, Clark Kent, was
changed to Nabil Fawzi, while Batman and Robin
became Subhi and Zakkour.

Aside from the conversion of imported comic-
book characters into local ones, rising national-
ist politics in newly independent countries led
to the search for culturally authentic subjects
and characters. Some comics featured folklorie
figures such as the wise Egyptian fool Juha,
known in other parts of the Middle East as Nasr
al-Din Khoja or Mullah Nasr al-Din, while others
retold Arab/an Nights stories, such as “Sinbad
the Sailor.” Historic subjects portrayed in Arab
comics include the medieval traveler Ibn Battuta,
Salah al-Din (Saladin), and the crusaders and
guerrillas who fought against the French and the
Israelis. Even women, such as the Syrian queen
Zenobia of Palmyra (third century C.E.), have
found a place in the comics. Comics in Turkey
have recounted the story of that nation's found-
ing father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938). In
Iraq, comics were used to lionize Saddam Husayn,
the country's former president, and promote the
ideology of the Baath Party. Egypt's charismatic
president, Jamal Abd al-Nasir (d. 1971), and
Hafiz al-Asad (d. 2000) of Syria have also been
comic book subjects. In India, which has one
of the largest Muslim populations in the world
(although they represent only about 12 percent of
the country's population), the Mughal emperors
Akbar (d. 1605) and Jahangir (d. 1627) have been
subjects of Amar Chitra Katha comics, a very
popular line of comic books celebrating favorite
topics in Indian history, religion, literature, and
folklore since 1967. Although this series often
favors Hindu subjects at the expense of Muslim
ones, it did publish an issue on Nur Jahan, the
gifted and influential wife of Jahangir and mother
of Shah Jahan (d. 1666), the builder of the Taj
Mahal.

There are also comics with mainly Islamic
religious content. This would seem to contradict
the Islamic prohibition against the portrayal of
human beings, especially of holy people. It should
be remembered, however, that this ruling has not
prevented the creation and reproduction of figural
images in premodern manuscript illuminations,

1 60 communism

traditional folk art, modern print publications,
and commercial art. Islamic comics have several
different kinds of themes. Some involve holy fig-
ures mentioned in the Quran or famous people
in early Islamic history. Muslim prophets such
as Abraham and Muhammad are never portrayed
in human form in these publications. Rather,
such comics depict a landscape or a burst bubble
accompanied by a speech bubble or narration
box containing the prophet's words, while the
prophet himself remains invisible. Other people
arc shown in human form, however. Another kind
of Islamic comic seeks to teach the importance of
performing ones ritual obligations, living a pious
life, or adhering to the ethical values of Islam.
Muslim periodicals published in Europe and
North America contain comics for children that
address similar issues. These are also intended
to help youth learn about their religious heritage
in secular societies where they are in the minor-
ity. On the other hand, anti-Islamic comics have
been published in the United States and Europe
by individuals and groups seeking to convert
Muslims or criticize or insult their beliefs and
practices. Such activity, while it is allowed in the
name of freedom of the press, has provoked angry
responses, as witnessed in Europe in 2006 when
the publication of unsympathetic cartoon images
of Muhammad in Denmark and other countries
sparked demonstrations by immigrant Muslims
in Europe and outraged Muslims in other parts of
the world.

See also books and bookmaking; calligraphy;
Europe; folklore.

Further reading: Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Doug-
las, Arab Comic Strips: Politics of an Emerging Mass Cul-
ture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); “It's
a Bird! Its a Plane! It's . . . Nabil FawziF* Saudi Aramco
21 (March/April 1970): 18-25; Frances Prichett, “The
World of Amar Chitra Katha." In Media and the Trans-
formation of Religion in South Asia, edited by Lawrence
A. Babb and Susan S. Wadley, 76-106 (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. 1995).

communism

One of the most important expressions of political
ideology, social organization, revolutionary action,
and economic development to appear in the 19th
and 20th centuries was communism. Its founding
figure was Karl Marx (d. 1883), a German intel-
lectual and journalist, who argued that history
was an ongoing struggle between the haves and
the have-nots (the rich and the poor) over control
of wealth. Fie believed that history would end with
the triumph of the working class over the exploit-
ative holders of capital, bringing about a peaceful,
classless society in which wealth was shared com-
munally. Communism, also known as Marxism,
inspired social and revolutionary movements in
Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Several of
these movements were able to establish central-
ized dictatorial regimes run by communist parties
in Russia (known as the Soviet Union from 1917
to 1991), Yugoslavia, China, North Korea, Viet-
nam, and most of the countries in Eastern Europe.
These governments were strongly opposed to
organized religion, because they believed that reli-
gion represented the established interests of the
old order and that it perpetuated false ideas about
human nature, economy, and society. By the end
of the 20th century, the majority of governments
under communist control had fallen except those
of China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba. The
decline of communism at the end of the century
coincided with the resurgence of political Islam,
and some scholars have seen a causal relationship
between the two phenomena.

During the 20th century, Islam encountered
communism in three ways: 1) intermittent sub-
jugation of Muslim populations by communist
governments in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe,
China, Yemen, and Afghanistan; 2) overt opposi-
tion by conservative Islamic states such as Saudi
Arabia to communist governments and parties;
and 3) competition among rival Islamic and com-
munist party organizations in their opposition to
undemocratic and authoritarian right-wing gov-
ernments and occupying powers. Many Muslims

community 1 61

see communism as being incompatible with their
core Islamic values and teachings, such as their
belief in God, performance of obligatory acts of
worship, and acquisition of religious instruction
as a part of ones moral development. Muslims in
the Middle East in particular have also rejected
communism because of the Soviet Unions quick
recognition of Israel in 1948 and the support
French Marxists showed for their government in
its bloody war against the Algerian independence
movement in 1954-62.

The governments of the Soviet Union and
other communist nations pursued policies to orga-
nize subject Muslim populations in Central Asia
into discreet nationalities based on ethnicity (for
example, Uzbek, Tajik, and Kirghiz) and cut them
off from their ties to Muslims and Islamic centers
in the Middle East. Mosques and Islamic schools
were closed or converted into cultural sites, while
the overt practice of Islam was largely forced to go
underground. The dissolution of the Soviet Union
in 1991, however, spurred the revival of Islam,
including militant lslamism, in the former Cen-
tral Asian republics. In China, Muslims enjoyed
religious freedom after World War 11 because they
sided with the Communists in their campaign
against the Nationalists for control of the country.
This relationship disintegrated during the Chinese
Cultural Revolution (1966-76), when Islam was
outlawed. Since that time, however, Muslim com-
munities have been allowed to rebuild their insti-
tutions, and their situation has improved.

The Islamic governments of Saudi Arabia and
the Iranian republic both took clear stands against
the spread of communist influence. During 1960s
and 1970s, Saudi king Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz (r.
1964-75) urged Muslims to oppose the spread
of atheism in their lands, by which he meant
not only communism but also Zionism and Arab
socialism. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan helped the
United States provide covert support in the 1980s
to the Afghan Mujahidin in their guerrilla war
against the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghani-
stan, a communist party that had seized power in

1979 with the backing of the Soviet army. Indeed,
the United States regarded both Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan as staunch allies during the cold war
(1945-91). Meanwhile, after the Islamic revolu-
tion in Iran (1978-79), the new Khomeini regime
violently eliminated the Marxist Tudeh (commu-
nist) Party, the Fedaiyan-i Khalq, and other leftist
groups that had formed earlier in opposition to
the Iranian monarchy.

Elsewhere, Islamic opposition movements
competed with small groups of communists and
leftists attempting to gain political power in coun-
tries ruled by conservative or secular authoritar-
ian governments. This was the case in Iran, Egypt,
and Iraq. The Palestinian nationalist movement
against Israeli occupation also reflects this fac-
tional rivalry. Several leading 20th-century reviv-
alists and reformers who were overtly opposed
to communism nonetheless seized upon Marxist
rhetoric concerning social justice, class struggle,
revolution, and liberation and reshaped it in an
Islamic mold. Abu Ala al-Mawdudi (d. 1979),
Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), and Ali Shariati (d. 1977)
were in the forefront of this group. The Islamic
movement that has most fully embodied the
combination of Marxism with revivalist Islamic
ideology is the Mujahidin-i Khalq, which opposed
Iran's monarchy and was violently suppressed after
the creation of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

See also Central Asia and the Caucasus; fidai ;
Muslim Brotherhood; politics and Islam.

Further reading: Alexandre Bcnnigsten and Chan-
tal Lemcrcier-Quclqucjay, Islam in the Soviet Union
(London: Pracgcr. 1967); Ernest Gcllner, “Islam and
Marxism: Some Comparisons." International Affairs 67
(1991): 1-6; Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic
Nationalism in the People's Republic (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1991); Ali A. Mazrui, “The
Resurgence of Islam and the Decline of Communism."
Futures 23 (1991): 273-289.

community See vmma.

162 Companions of the Prophet

Companions of the Prophet (Arabic:

dl-sahdba; ashab al-nabi)

The Companions of the Prophet are the Muslims
who joined with Muhammad (d. 632) in Medina
during the seventh century to form the first
Islamic community. They are highly esteemed by
Sunni Muslims not only because of the roles they
played in early Islamic history but also because of
their involvement in the preservation and trans-
mission of the Quran after Muhammad's death
and in the definition and consolidation of the
sunna itself. In fact, the hadith upon which the
sunna is based include lists of transmitters that
invariably give the names of companions who had
witnessed what Muhammad said or did or who
are themselves considered to have been virtuous
exemplars of authentic Islamic practice.

Sunni tradition recognizes several groups among
the companions, with some overlap among them.
They are the first four “rightly guided caliphs”
(Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali); the Emigrants
( muhajirun ) from Mecca; the Helpers (Ansar)
from Medina, veterans of Badr, Uhud, and other
early battles against Muhammad's enemies; and the
People of the Bench. The last-named was a group of
poor and pious Muslims who gathered at a bench
(sujfa) in Muhammad's mosque in Medina. They
are highly respected in Sufi tradition. The compan-
ions also included women, especially the “Moth-
ers of the Believers,'' among whom Muhammad's
wife, Aisha, was foremost. On the other hand, the
companions whom Sunnis revere (except Ali) are
reviled by many Shii Muslims. The Shia contend
that individuals such as Abu Bakr, Umar, and Aisha
actually corrupted the pristine Islamic community
by preventing Ali, the first Shii Imam, from becom-
ing Muhammad's successor after his death in 632.

See also sharia; umma.

Further reading: Fuad Jabali, The Companions of the
Prophet: A Study of Geographical Distribution and Politi-
cal Alignments (Leiden: E.J. Brill. 2003); Muslim ibn
al-Hajjaj, Sahih Muslim , trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, 4
vols. (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1975).

consensus See ijmaa.

Constantinople Sec Istanbul.
constitutionalism

Minimally, constitutionalism means government
can and should be legally limited in its powers
and that authority is derived from and depends
upon those limitations. Such constitutionalism,
in principle, even if not in practice, has become
part and parcel of Islamic history. Indeed, the
Charter (or Constitution) of Medina, Muhammad's
compact with the Muslim and Jewish community
(umma) that constituted the first Islamic polity
after the Hijra in 622, has been regarded as an
early foundation for constitutionalism in modern
Muslim-majority countries.

Sociologically speaking, a constitution is a
“coordinating convention" that establishes “self-
regulating" institutions that both “enable" and
“constrain" democratic behavior. Social contract
theories are misleading inasmuch as “agreement"
or “tacit consent" is not a condition for accept-
ing the constitutional order; mere acquiescence
suffices. This renders the Western conception of
“popular sovereignty" a rhetorical contrivance or
metaphor, which, in turn, has important conse-
quences for Islamic political theory. One oft-cited
reason for Muslim hostility to liberal constitution-
alism is the notion of popular sovereignty, which
is seen as infringing upon or contradicting the
sovereignty that properly belongs to God. Never-
theless, the idea of sovereignty may have still have
a role to play in constitutionalism if God's confer-
ral of “vice-regency" (or deputation of author-
ity) to humans implies some sort of individual
sovereignty. Here, sovereignty (in a distributive
or shared sense) entails according human beings
theological and metaphysical freedom, which is
logically prior to any notion of rights and liber-
ties found in a constitution. The citizen-sovereign
would thus make the laws, be bound by those

constitutionalism 1 63

laws, and yet somehow remain ‘'above" the law in
acts of civil disobedience, amending or reforming
the constitution, or in a constitutional revolution.
Conceding this conception, the literal meaning of
popular sovereignty in a collective sense commits
the informal logical fallacy of composition.

Among the criteria for a liberal constitution arc
limits on majority decision making; recognition of
human and civil (and increasingly, social and eco-
nomic) rights and liberties; an independent and
impartial judiciary to guarantee and protect these
rights (including judicial review); and separa-
tion of executive, legislative, and judicial powers.
Among the concepts within the Islamic tradition
suggestive of or compatible with constitutional-
ism are shura (consultation), ijmaa (consensus),
IJTIHAD (as independent legal reasoning), maslaha
(public welfare), majlis (tribal council; public
audience granted the caliph), bayaa (an unwrit-
ten contract or pact involving the recognition of,
and allegiance to, political authority), and wilaya
(custodianship, guardianship, trusteeship).

In the 19th century Ottoman Empire, Egypt,
and Tunisia, constitutions were honored in the
breach. Autocracy, patrimonialism, tribalism, and
colonialism have left their indelible marks on
efforts at liberal reform and the democratic aspira-
tions of Muslims. In the second half of the 20th
century, socialist and nationalist ideologies were
added to the mix. That said, and keeping the Mus-
lim Middle East and North Africa in mind, one can
endorse Noah Feldmans remark "that the world is
littered with beautifully drafted constitutions that
have been ineffective or ignored in practice" (Feld-
man, 186). The Iranian Constitutional Revolu-
tion (1905-11) prefigured much of the potential
and some of the problems that were to attend later
democratic experiments, most conspicuously the
Iranian Revolution of 1978-79. The constitution
of the Islamic Republic of Iran contains ostensibly
democratic features — in Malise Ruthvcn's words,
it is a "hybrid of Islamic and western liberal con-
cepts" (Ruthvin, 372). But Ayatollah Khomeinis
conception of the "guardianship of the jurist"

(wilayat-i faqih), expressed in the constitution in
terms of the “chief juriconsult" and the 12-mem-
ber Council of Guardians, has blocked democratic
methods and processes, enshrining an insidious
form of religious authoritarianism. Feldman con-
tends the constitutional monarchies of Jordan
and Morocco "represent the best hope for the
development of Islamic democracy in the Arab
world" (Feldman, 50) The machinations of the
military in Pakistan, Algeria, and — less frequently
and less confidently — Turkey, make mincemeat of
constitutional law. Nonetheless, Turkey is rightly
described as an "emerging democracy.” The
constitutional monarchy of Malaysia is betwixt
and between authoritarianism and democracy,
while Indonesia's democratic evolution has relied
on well-crafted and well-timed constitutional
reform.

Constitution making is today in process in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian occupied
territories, with the assistance or support of the
U.S. government or local political organizations,
such as the Palestinian National Authority. After
enacting the proto-constitutional and provisional
Basic Law, a constitutional committee has com-
pleted its third draft of the constitution for an
independent and sovereign Palestinian state (sub-
ject to further amendments). Islam is declared
the official religion of the future Palestinian
state, while the constitution guarantees "equal-
ity in rights and duties to all citizens irrespec-
tive of their religious beliefs." The “principles”
of “Islamic sharia" are termed “a major source
of legislation," not unlike the way in which the
principle(s) of natural law have functioned in a
number of Western constitutions.

See also civil society; democracy; Palestine.

Patrick S. O'Donnell

Further reading: Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Politi-
cal Thought (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982);
John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Islam and Democ-
racy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Noah
Feldman, After Jihad: America and the Struggle for

1 64 Constitutional Revolution

Islamic Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
2003); Russell Hardin, Liberalism, Constitutionalism and
Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World, 2d ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000).

Constitutional Revolution

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1903-11
"represents the first direct encounter in modern
Iran between traditional Islamic culture and the
West” (Enayat, 166). It had a lasting effect on Ira-
nian politics and helped to form Ayatollah Ruhul-
lah Khomeinis formulation of Islamic governance,
crystallized in his conception of the "guardianship
of the jurist" ( wilayat-i faqih ), which was to have a
decisive impact on the religious, democratic, and
constitutional character of the 1979 revolutionary
republic.

Western powers had been meddling in Iran
since the Napoleonic wars in the 19th century.
Britain and Russia, in particular, had geopolitical
designs and economic interests that left Iran only
partly independent. The Qajar dynasty's survival,
in fact, depended on these two European powers.
Treaties, terms of trade, and foreign concessions
fundamentally restructured the Iranian economy,
decimating craft production, while the importa-
tion of cheap consumer goods “did not necessarily
bring a better life to most Iranians. More sugar,
tea, tobacco and especially opium were consumed
. . . while prices of basic foodstuffs rose" (Keddie
1981: 57). At the same time, Western philosophi-
cal and political ideas such as liberalism, rep-
resentative government, and CONSTITUTIONALISM
began to circulate among workers, merchants,
and elites alike. The Tobacco Protest of 1891-92
was a prelude to the Constitutional Revolution, as
the Muslim modernist and pan-Islamist Jamal al-
Din al-Afghani persuaded key ulama to mobilize
merchants of the bazaar alongside their fellow
Iranians to boycott tobacco products.

Periodic protests over customs (tax) reforms,
a series of strikes, and the operation of secret

societies signaled widespread dissatisfaction with
the regimes capitulation to foreign powers. Japan’s
victory in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War and
the Russian Revolution of 1905 further embold-
ened the protesters. The actual catalyst for the
Constitutional Revolution was the caning (of
the feet) of two sugar merchants for raising their
prices. Mullahs, merchants, and protesters took
sanctuary (bast) outside Tehran and called for,
among other things, a “house of justice.” The
ruler, Muzaffar al-Din Shah (r. 1896-1907), issued
a decree consenting to the request but failed to
act on it. A growing coalition of forces shared a
nationalist identity: leftist social democrats, secu-
lar and religious reformers, orthodox ulama, Free-
masons, merchants, shopkeepers, students, and
guild members. Nationalist slogans and calls for
a constitutional monarchy rallied the opposition
taking bast in Qom and at the British legation's
compound in Tehran.

In August 1906, the shah's royal proclama-
tion permitted the formation of a majlis (national
assembly or parliament) and the drafting of a
constitution. The first majlis convened in October
1906, and a new constitution, modeled in part
on the Belgian constitution of 1831, was ratified
on December 30, 1906, just prior to the death of
Muzaffar al-Din. Supplementary constitutional
laws were signed the following year by the new
shah, Muhammad Ali (r. 1907-09). With minor
amendments, this constitution remained legally in
effect until the 1978-79 revolution.

Prominent Shii mullahs were proponents of
a constitution recognizing Twelve-Imam Shiism
as the official religion of the country, including
Sayyid Muhammad Tabatabai, Sayyid Abdullah
Bihbihani, Mulla Muhammad Kazim Khurasani,
and Muhammad Husayn Naini. An early sup-
porter of the revolution, Shaykh Fadlullah Nuri,
turned against the constitution and the majlis
when he realized the ulama were not to be
accorded the final say as to whether legislation
was in keeping with Islamic tenets, particularly
the sharia. Nuri led the anticonstitutionalist cler-

conversion 1 65

ics at the same time the Anglo-Russian Conven-
tion of 1907 was dividing Iran into respective
spheres of British and Russian influence. Not
long after an unsuccessful coup attempt by the
anticonstitutionalists, reflecting deep divisions
among the elites and in the larger society as well,
the Cossack Brigade helped shut down the majlis
in June 1908. Constitutionalists, nationalists,
and revolutionary Social Democrats regained
control in July 1909 and deposed the shah.
Dissatisfaction on many fronts descended into
rounds of assassination and terrorism, while
public discontent with an increasingly conserva-
tive constitutional government grew from 1910
to 1911.

With the consent of the British, the Russians
offered an ultimatum to the government when the
American financial adviser Morgan Shuster was
brought in to help the country out of its financial
morass. Fortified by antiimperialist demonstra-
tions, the majlis rejected the ultimatum. By the
end of 1911, the Russians were bombing Tabriz
and Gilan, massacring revolutionaries in Azerbai-
jan, and executing and deporting constitutional-
ists. A coup led by Nasir al-Mulk and the cabinet
ended the second majlis and the revolution that
brought it to power. However, future revolution-
ary forces would look back to Iran's first Consti-
tutional Revolution to learn from its lessons and
inspire their own efforts to oppose tyrannical
regimes.

See also colonialism; democracy; politics and
Islam.

Patrick S. O'Donnell

Further reading: Janet Afary. The Iranian Constitutional
Revolution , 1906-1911 (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996); Mangol Bayat, Iran's First Revolution: Shi-
ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1 905-1 909 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Hamid Enayat,
Modern Islamic Political Thought (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1982); Nikki R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots
and Results of Revolution (New Haven. Conn.: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1981); Nikki R. Keddie, ed., Religion and

Politics in Iran: Shiism from Quietism to Revolution (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1983).

conversion

Conversion to Islam is a remarkably simple pro-
cess, normally entailing no more than saying, with
the proper intent, the shahada: I declare that there
is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the
messenger of God. The Quran explicitly rejects
imposition of religious belief, and Islam has his-
torically allowed other religions great freedom.

Islam has always been a proselytizing religion;
Muhammad converted his earliest followers in the
seventh century from the pagan ways of Mecca to
the worship of a single God, Allah. After suffering
Meccan persecution, the small community moved
to Medina, where the small band of Muslims grew
to form the nucleus of the Islamic community, or
UMMA. After the death of the Prophet in 632, the
Arab Muslim armies burst out of the Arabian Pen-
insula, conquering enormous swathes of territory
of the Byzantine Empire and utterly destroying
the Persian empire of the Sassanians. In the resul-
tant Islamicate empire, Islam was the religion of
the state, but members of other religious groups
were allowed freedom of worship as DH/MM/s, or
“protected subjects/' As a result of the military
expansion of the Islamicate empire, the errone-
ous notion of “conversion by the sword" has his-
torically taken root among non-Muslims. In fact,
there was little attempt to convert non-Muslims
during the early conquests. In some cases, conver-
sion was actively discouraged, for it deprived the
state of a source of revenue, as clhimmis were taxed
differently from Muslims. The empire itself, how-
ever, clearly emerged through the use of military
power, and the dominance of Muslims within that
empire should be considered a major, if partial,
motivation for later conversion. Nonetheless, it
is important to note that non-Muslims living in
Islamicate polities generally had freedoms and
rights that non-Christians could only dream of in
medieval Europe.

'Css*'}

1 66 Copts and the Coptic Church

Among scholars, debate has centered on the
question of when conversion to Islam primarily
took place, especially in the Islamicate heartlands
of the Middle East. The consensus, that the major-
ity of such conversions took place during the ninth
century, is probably more correct for some areas,
such as Iran, than for others, such as Egypt, where
evidence points to a considerably later turning
point. A more interesting question, however, is
why and how conversion occurred; this question
has yet to be taken up in a serious manner.

In the outlying areas of Islamdom, particularly
in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, but also in
South India and Bengal, conversion to Islam came
about as a result of different factors, largely the
role of traders and Sufis, who were able to offer
a different and convincing system of belief and
worship that attracted followers. Conversion to
Islam continues to contribute significantly to the
growth of the community, with major, organized
efforts now underway in Africa, where Muslim
and Christian missionaries arc in direct competi-
tion, but also in Europe and North America.

See also apostasy; Christianity and Islam;
Copts and the Coptic Church; Judaism and Islam;
Latin America.

John Iskander

Further reading: Richard Bulliet, Conversion and the
Poll Tax in Early Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1979); Daniel Dennett. Conversion and
the Poll Tax in Early Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1950); Richard Eaton, The Rise of
Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1 760 (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press. 1993); Michael Gcrvcrs and
Ramzi Bikhazi, cds., Conversion and Continuity: Indig-
enous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth
to Eighteenth Centuries (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, 1990).

Copts and the Coptic Church

The Copts are members of the native Christian
church of Egypt. The name Copt , like the name

Egypt , comes from the Greek word Aegyptos.
Thus, Coptic was used to mean Egyptian. When
the Arab Muslims conquered Egypt in 641-42,
they continued to use the word Copt to refer to
the indigenous Christian population, the descen-
dants of the ancient Egyptians. Today Egypt is
85 percent to 90 percent Muslim, and all its resi-
dents consider themselves Egyptians, while the
term Copt refers specifically to a member of the
country’s native Christian population.

The Christian community in Egypt traces
its origins to the Apostle Mark (first century).
Although the Egyptian church suffered many
persecutions under the Roman emperors, when
Christianity became the dominant religion of the
Roman Empire in the early fourth century, the
church flourished and Alexandria was the center
both of religious and intellectual life. Egypt was
also the birthplace of monasticism.

Despite the contributions of the Coptic Church,
by the fifth century, theological differences and
political tensions were straining the relationship
between the Copts and the other Christians of
what was then the Byzantine Empire. In the sev-
enth century, Islam arose in Arabia, and a Muslim
army invaded Egypt under the leadership of Amr
ibn al-As (d. ca. 663), one of the Companions of
the Prophet.

Relations between the Christian Coptic popu-
lation and the Arab Muslim rulers ranged from
antagonism to cooperation depending on social,
economic, and regional factors. The Copts were
granted DHIMMI status as a protected community
under Islam but were also expected to pay an
additional tax. Muslim rulers relied on the Copts
to continue the administration of the country, and
Copts held important positions in government
throughout the medieval era. Although Cop-
tic remained the language of administration for
about a century after the arrival of Islam, Arabic
language and Islamicate culture gradually came to
dominate in Egypt, and Copts began to convert to
Islam in increasing numbers. This was especially
true during a time of persecution in the 14th

Cordoba 1 67

The Virgin Mary Coptic Church in Zamalek, Cairo, also
called the Maraashly Church (Juan E. Campo)

century, such that by the 1 5th century the Coptic
language had all but disappeared except for litur-
gical purposes.

In the medieval period, despite the Copts' pro-
tected status and service in the government, they
suffered from periodic popular discrimination
and waves of persecution during times of famine
or hardship. This continued into the modern era.
Egypt now has a constitution promising equal
rights to all citizens regardless of their religion,
but many Copts feel they are victims of discrimi-
nation as a religious minority in a predominantly
Muslim country.

The last hundred years have witnessed a
revival among the Copts. This is most clearly evi-
denced by the greater focus on “Sunday school"
instruction and renewed interest in the monastic
way of life. At the same time, however, the num-
ber of Copts within Egypt continues to dwindle,
primarily as a result of emigration to the West.

Sec also Christianity and Islam.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Barbara L. Carter, The Copts in Egyp-
tian Politics (London: Croom Helm. 1986); Jill Kamil.
Coptic Egypt: History and Guide (Cairo: American Uni-

versity in Cairo Press, 1987); Otto F. A. Mcinardus, Two
Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity (Cairo: American
University in Cairo Press, 1999); John Watson. Among
the Copts (Brighton, U.K.: Sussex Academic Press,

sm

Cordoba (Cordoba, Cordova)

Cordoba is a large city that was once the leading
center of Muslim political power and culture in
Andalusia in medieval Spain. It is located on the
banks of the Guadalquivir River, which Rows
between the Sierra Morcna range to the north
and the Sierra Nevada range to the south before
it enters the Atlantic Ocean. Its location has made
it an important center of commerce since ancient
times. The Romans seized and colonized it in
the second century B.c.E. and ruled it until they
were replaced by Germanic invaders from central
Europe, who controlled it for most of the time
between the fifth and eighth centuries c.E. It sur-
rendered to Muslim armies from North Africa in
71 1 and achieved the height of its greatness dur-
ing the reign of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Rah-
man 111 (r. 912-961). It is estimated to have had
about 300,000 inhabitants at that time, making it
the largest city in medieval Europe. Medieval Arab
historians remembered Cordoba as “the bride of
al-Andalus," and even Hroswilha (d. ca. 1002), a
Christian nun in Germany, called it “the ornament
of the world." After the 10th century, its fortunes
declined because of political strife, and it finally
fell to the armies of the Christian Reconquista in
1236. Today its population still stands at about
300,000, and it serves as the capital of the Spanish
province of the same name.

lslamicate Cordobas most famous architec-
tural landmarks were its grand mosque and pal-
ace cities. The mosque is thought to have been
founded on the site of an ancient church by prince
Abd al-Rahman 1 (r. 756-788), the last surviving
member of the Umayyad dynasty of Syria that had
been massacred by the Abbasids in 750. By the
10th century, it had become the largest mosque

' Css5D 1 68 cosmology

of its kind in any of the Muslim lands, and it
was renowned for its great beauty. The mosques
design recalled that of Umayyad mosques in Syria
to the extent that even its prayer niche ( mihrab )
faced south rather than southwest, the actual
direction of Mecca. When it was later captured by
the Christians, they built a Gothic cathedral and
several chapels within its walls, thus symbolizing
the religious and political displacement of Islam
by Christianity.

Cordoba's first Muslim rulers built the Alcazar,
the main government palace, next to the grand
mosque, following the urban palace-mosque pat-
tern used in cities of the Islamicate Middle East.
When Christian forces captured Cordoba in 1236,
they occupied the Alcazar and later built a royal
palace and church on its grounds. This was where
Christopher Columbus came to get permission
to sail to the Indies in 1492. Muslim rulers
also erected luxurious palaces and palace cities
on the city's outskirts. The most legendary of
these was Abd al-Rahman Ill's Madinat al-Zahra,
which boasted exquisite arabesque ornamentation
and paradisiacal gardens. Unfortunately, it was
destroyed by rebellious Berber troops in 1013.

As a center of learning, Cordoba had dozens
of Muslim and Christian schools. It also had as
many as 70 libraries, including the famous Alca-
zar library of the caliphs, which housed 400,000
books — substantially more than any other library
in Europe in the 11th century. Among Cordoba's
great creative artists and thinkers were poets such
as Ibn Abd Rabbihi (d. 940) and Ibn Zaydun (d.
1071), jurist and religious scholar Ibn Hazm (d.
1064), and Ibn Rushd (also known by his Latin
name Averroes, d. 1198), the famed Muslim
author of books on philosophy, theology, law,
and medicine. Cordoba was also the birthplace of
Maimonides (also known as Moshe ben Maimun,
d. 1204), who became the most important Jewish
philosopher and religious scholar of the Middle
Ages.

See also Christianity and Islam; cities; Umayyad
Caliphate.

Further reading: Robert Hillcnbrand, “’Ornament of
the World : Medieval Cordoba as a Cultural Centre,”
in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra
Jayyusi. 2 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 1:112-135;
Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How
Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of
Tolerance in Medieval Spain (New York: Little, Brown,
2002 ).

cosmology Sec CREATION.

Council on American-lslamic
Relations (Acronym: CAIR)

CAIR is the largest Islamic civil liberties group in
the United States. It is headquartered in Wash-
ington, D.C., and has 28 regional offices in the
United States and Canada. It was founded in June
1994 by Omar Ahmad, a computer engineer from
the San Francisco Bay area. He is currently the
chairman of its board of directors, which has six
other members to promote a positive image of
Islam and Muslims in America. CAIR publishes
reports for the media, government, and local law
enforcement, including an annual civil rights
report documenting cases of discrimination.
Handbooks for local Muslim leaders demonstrate
how to safely participate in the public sphere
by holding mosque open houses and developing
interfaith relationships. In addition to monitoring
anti-Muslim hate crimes, CAIR publishes action
alerts on its Web site and by e-mail to promote
local activism.

On the national level, CAIR has sponsored
public relations campaigns showing Muslims as
fully American as well as organizing a voter reg-
istration drive. To help educate Americans about
Islam, CAIR has also assembled a package of
books and other resource materials that can be
purchased and donated to public libraries. It also
publishes a handbook that explains Islam to law
enforcement officials, a “community safety kit”
to help Muslims deal with religious and ethnic

Council on Islamic Education 1 69

profiling and hate crimes, a survey of mosques in
the United States, and annual reports on the status
of Muslim civil rights. CA1R swiftly issued a con-
demnation of the attacks of September 11, 2001
and has organized interfaith memorial services on
subsequent anniversaries.

CAIR has also emerged as the leading Islamic
community service organization on the local
level. Local CAIR chapters spend the majority
of their time dealing with individual cases of
discrimination by advocating workplace, hos-
pital, and school accommodation of religious
practices. Since September 11, 2001, CAIR has
become increasingly involved in hosting confer-
ences, seminars, and town hall meetings to bring
together American Muslims, non-Muslims, and
government officials.

In addition to its primary goals of promoting
a positive image of Muslims in America, reduc-
ing ignorance about Muslims, and protecting
Muslim citizens from discrimination and criminal
violence, CAIR works with related organiza-
tions such as the Muslim Public Affairs Coun-
cil (MPAC) and the American Muslim Council
(AMC) to lobby Congress on domestic issues and
in doing so attempts to promote Muslim unity on
a local and national level.

See also civil society; democracy; dialogue.

Vincent F. Biondo 111

Further reading: Organization Web site: Available
online. URL: http://www.cair-net.org. Council on Amer-
ican-lslamic Relations, A Rush to Judgment: A Special
Report on Anti-Muslim Stereotyping , Harassment and
Hate Crimes Following the Bombing of Oklahoma City's
Murrah Federal Building, April 19, 1995 (Washington,
D.C.: Council on American-lslamic Relations. 1995);
Yvonne Yazbck Haddad, cd., Muslims in the West: From
Sojourners to Citizens (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002); Mohamed Nimer, The North American
Muslim Resource Guide, (New York: Routledge, 2002);
Jane I. Smith, Islam in America (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999).

Council on Islamic Education

(acronym: CIE)

The Council on Islamic Education is a nonprofit
American Muslim organization founded in 1990
to provide curricular advice and to assess instruc-
tional materials used in K-12 public schools in the
United States. It is based in Fountain Valley, Cali-
fornia, and its founding director is Shabbir Man-
suri, who first came to the United States in 1969
to study chemical engineering. A group of highly
qualified Muslim scholars, most of whom hold
tenured appointments at leading American uni-
versities, provides CIE with the expertise needed
to undertake its mission. Although it understands
itself to be an organization that provides advice
for curricular planning and textbook development
in a variety of K-12 subject areas, it is primarily
concerned with ensuring that Muslims and Islam
are represented in a fair and balanced manner in
textbooks and other instructional material used
in world history and religion classes. Seeking to
operate in conformity with the decision of the
U.S. Supreme Court in the First Amendment case
of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), the CIE
favors teaching about religion in public schools
as an aspect of human history and culture and
not teaching religion for devotional purposes,
which is not allowed in public schools by the
First Amendment. In addition to consulting with
textbook publishers, the CIE conducts pedagogi-
cal workshops and participates in regional and
national social studies and educational confer-
ences. Together with the First Amendment Cen-
ter, which has offices at Vanderbilt University in
Tennessee and in Arlington, Virginia, it published
a study in 2000 entitled “Teaching about Religion
in National and State Social Studies Standards.”
Among its other publications are teachers guides
on Muslim holidays, Muslim women, Islamic lit-
erature, the Crusades, and Islam's contributions
to the formation of Western civilization. The CIE
has rejected charges made by critics who say that
the organization promotes a negative view of the
United States and Western civilization as well as

170 covenant

an overly favorable view of Islam, its peoples, and
its history.

See also education; student.

Further reading: Elizabeth Barrow, ed.. Evaluation of
Secondary-Level Textbooks for Coverage of the Middle
East and North Africa. 3d ed. (Ann Arbor, Mich.:
Middle East Studies Association and the Middle East
Outreach Council, June 1994); Charles Haynes, A
Teacher's Guide to Study about Religion in Public Schools
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991); Charles C. Haynes,
Sam Chaltain, et al., The First Amendment in Schools: A
Guide from the First Amendment Center (Alexandria, Va.:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Develop-
ment, 2000).

covenant

A covenant is a contractual agreement or com-
mitment that states the mutual duties and obliga-
tions of the parties involved. In the Abrahamic
religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it
has considerable theological significance because
it expresses the relation between God and humans
at specific moments in sacred history. Sometimes
it is understood as a bilateral agreement involving
mutual concord between God and his people, and
in other cases, it is given by God alone. Accord-
ing to the doctrines of these religions, God will
reward humans for heeding his commands and
punish them for forgetting or disobeying them.
The Torah of Judaism expresses the covenants
between God, humankind, and the people of
Israel that occurred in the times of Noah, Abra-
ham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. The most impor-
tant such agreement in Judaism is the covenant
established at Sinai, which Moses conveyed to the
Israelites from God. Christians have regarded this
as the old covenant, or “testament," which has
been succeeded by a new one given by Jesus in
the Gospels.

In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, God
is believed to have established covenants with
both humankind and with sacred individuals (the

prophets) and their followers. The covenant men-
tioned most often in the Quran is the one between
God and the people of Israel, which they are
blamed for breaking (for example, Q 2:83). The
key division expressed in the quranic agreements
is between those who honor Gods commands as
believers and those who do not — the forgetful and
the disbelievers. The most universal covenant is
the primordial one God established on the Day of
Alastu , when he brought forth all of Adam’s future
progeny and they acknowledged his oneness and
sovereignty (Q 7:172). Muslims are told that if
they remember to keep Gods covenant and fulfil 1
other conditions, they can return in the AFTER-
LIFE to the PARADISE from which Adam had been
expelled for violating his agreement with God
(Q 2:35-36, 13:20-23). Those who do not will
face God's curse and the fires of hell (Q 13:25).
Aside from Adam, other prophets who were party
to covenants with God were Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, and Muhammad. In regard to Muhammad,
the Quran stales that the prophets have all agreed
with God to believe in and help his future mes-
senger, the prophet of Islam (Q 3:81). In Shiism,
the idea of covenant has been shaped to promote
belief in its doctrines concerning Muhammad's
holy family (the AHL al-bayt ) and the imams.

See also Adam and Eve; Christianity and
Islam; holy books; Judaism and Islam; sharia.

Further reading: John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies:
Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 8-12; Bernard Weiss,
“Covenant and Law in Islam.” In Religion and Law:
Biblical , Judaic, and Islamic Perspectives, edited by E.
B. Firmage, B. Weiss and J. W. Welch, 49-83 (Winona
Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990).

creation

Historians of religion have noted that most reli-
gions and traditional societies have creation
myths — stories about the origins of the world,
plants and ANIMALS, human beings, and important

creation 171

aspects of social life. The events these nonsci-
entific accounts describe purportedly took place
during the primordium, at the beginning time of
the world and human history. People hold them
to be true in literal and symbolic ways, and the
stories contain reflections about human mortality,
good and evil, and even the end of the world. Cre-
ation accounts are usually recited, remembered,
or performed in rituals on important HOLIDAYS,
usually linked to the seasons.

Islamic stories and beliefs about creation are
to be found in the Quran and a wide array of
writings in Arabic, Persian, and other languages
in the Muslim world. These writings include the
hadith, histories, philosophical essays, mystical
texts, and poetry. Creation myths have also been
incorporated into the oral traditions of Muslim
peoples from Africa to Southeast Asia. They con-
tain themes and beliefs that were once part of the
indigenous religious and cultural life even before
Islam arrived on the scene. With Islamization,
the native themes were reshaped to uphold the
Quran's chief teaching that everything in exis-
tence was created by one sovereign God (Allah)
and that he had no partners in this. As a conse-
quence, all creation, especially human beings, was
obliged to submit to him and serve him.

The Quran's creation accounts drew from
those that originated in the ancient civilizations
of the Middle East, especially those found in the
book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, which date
to at least the seventh century B.c.E. However,
because it was organized according to different
rules than those used for the Hebrew Bible, the
Quran's creation passages were not presented as a
continuous story. It has verses that discuss God's
creation of the universe (the cosmogony ), the cre-
ation of Adam and his wife (the anthropogony ),
and the story of their fall from grace and expul-
sion from Paradise, but they are dispersed and
repeated in different chapters, starting with the
second chapter, "Al-Baqara" (The cow). Indeed,
details from the biblical accounts were omitted,
suggesting that either they were not familiar to

Muhammad and his audience or they were not
deemed to be relevant to the message Muhammad
wished to convey. One consequence of this is that
the quranic creation stories were not celebrated
in rituals or on particular holidays, in contrast to
creation stories in other religions and cultures.
By the eighth century C.E., Muslim scholars were
reassembling the quranic creation passages and
combining them with biblical material and Jewish
rabbinic lore to write continuous narratives about
God's creative activities. These creation myths
were included in books about the prophets who
preceded Muhammad, such as those written by Ibn
Ishaq (d. 767), al-Thaalabi (d. 1036), and al-Kisai
(ca. 13th century). They were also included in al-
Azraqis (d. 837) history of Mecca and the famous
world history written by Abbasid historian and
Quran commentator al-Tabari (d. 923).

In the Quran, as in the Bible, God creates by
two methods: through craftsmanship and through
speech. The doctrine of creation from nothing
(Latin, creation ex nihilo) as a way of proving God's
absolute transcendence and power is not clearly
stated in the Quran, but it was taken up by Jew-
ish, Christian, and Muslim theologians later in the
Middle Ages. Most of the Arabic words used in the
Quran to describe God's creative actions suggest
they resembled human activities such as leather
working, making pottery, building, and growing,
which implies that formless matter already existed.
The most common word for creation is based on
the root consonants kh-l-q, which the Quran uses
more than 200 times in relation to God. Indeed,
one of his 99 names is al-Khaliq (the creator), as
stated in this verse: “He is God the Creator, the
Maker, the Shaper of Forms. He has the most beau-
tiful names. All that are in heaven and earth glorify
him. He is the Almighty, the Wise" (Q 39:24).

In refutation of polytheistic beliefs, the Quran
proclaims that it was God alone who raised the
heavens and spread out the earth below them,
making it stable and placing rivers on it (Q
13:2-3). Pagan gods, angels, and other beings
had no inherent powers in creation. God created

172 creation

day and night, the Sun, the MOON, and the signs
of the zodiac (Q 21:33; 25:61-62). The Quran
also states in several places that God created the
heavens and Earth in six days and then estab-
lished his throne (Q 7:54; 10:3, 11:7). Unlike the
Genesis account, however, the Quran refutes the
idea that God ever took the seventh day as a day
of rest (Q 2:255), which Jews and Christians have
celebrated as the holy Sabbath day. God is also
praised for creating gardens with different kinds
of fruits and vegetables for people to eat, and he
is the source of the water that nourishes them (Q
6:141; 21:19). Moreover, he is even remembered
for having provided people with houses and cloth-
ing (Q 16:80-81). The absolute creative power
attributed to God in the Quran later became the
basis for the theological claim that God did not
just create the world "in the beginning,” but that
he is active as a creator at each moment in time
as long as the world exists. It also was invoked in
support of the prohibition against making statues
and paintings of living beings, for in doing so the
artist was thought to be attempting to assume
God's creative power.

In addition to craftsmanship, God was also
believed to be able to create through speech. Once
he decides to create something, according to the
Quran, all he has to do is say, “Be!" and it is so
(kun fa yakun ) (Q 2:117). This kind of creation
is not as common as the craftsman type, but it is
said to have been involved with the creation of the
heavens and Earth, Adam, and Jesus (Q 3:59).

The Quran describes the creation of human
beings in two ways. One concerns the origin of
the first human being, Adam. He was fashioned by
God from dust or wet clay (Q 30:20; 6:2; 7:12);
the commentaries likened the process to making
a hollow clay pot. Some early writings said God
used different colors of dust from different places
on Earth, thus explaining the variety of skin col-
ors and personalities that distinguish people from
one another. Alternately, they mentioned that the
dust was taken from the Kaaba, Jerusalem, Yemen,
the Hejaz, Egypt, the east, and the west. As in the

biblical account, God then breathed his spirit (ruh)
into Adam, thus giving him life (Q 15:29). Also,
as indicated above, the Quran says that Adam was
created when God conceived a design and spoke to
the dust, saying, "Be!“ (Q 3:59). It does not detail
the creation of Eve other than in very general
terms (Q 4:1). Nonetheless, the commentaries,
drawing upon biblical lore, reported that she was
created from one of Adam's ribs while he slept.

The second way in which the Quran describes
God's involvement in creating humans is in terms
of human reproduction. God created humans from
sperm (Q 16:4; 36:77) in the wombs of mothers
(Q 3:6; 39:6). The very first verses many Muslims
believe were revealed to Muhammad were those at
the beginning of Sura 96, which declare, "Recite
in the name of your lord who created, created the
human being from clotted blood” (vv. 1-2). This
passage links God’s creative power to the forma-
tion of the embryo.

The idea that Gods creation is designed for the
material and spiritual benefit of human beings is
central to the Quran. Indeed, God created them to
be his deputies ( khalifa ) on Earth (Q 2:30). Materi-
ally, the Earth provides people with what they need
to live and enjoy their appointed time on Earth.
Spiritually, everything in creation is intended to
be a reminder that God was the source of all and
that people should worship him. To be ungrateful
and forgetful of God were equivalent to disbelief
and infidelity (feu/r). This idea is connected to the
quranic concept of signs ( ayat ), which are mani-
fest both in the created world and in the sacred
book, for ayat also means verses of scripture. The
interwoven signs of the world and the holy book,
if they are recognized and heeded, lead to God and
salvation. If they are rejected and ignored, they
lead to suffering and damnation (Q 2:164-165;
50:6-8). Although the world of everyday existence
is essentially true and good, the Quran emphasizes
that humans must be more attentive to the affairs
of the next world in anticipation of Judgment
Day. Recognizing that human beings are mortal
and that the world will end one day, the Quran

creation 173

attributes to God the power not only to create, but
also to create again. The resurrection of the dead is
portrayed as a new creation (Q 17:49-51).

The concept of creation by emanation was an
alternative belief expressed in later Islamic writ-
ings, but not in the Quran. It first developed in
pre-Islamic times among mystics known as Gnos-
tics and Neoplatonist philosophers. Both groups
exercised a profound impact on the religions of
the Middle East, especially among Christians
after the third century, and later among Muslims.
According to this belief, the manifest universe is
the product of a series of emanations issuing like
waves of light from a single absolute source or
godhead. In Islam, this belief was embraced by
illuminationist philosophers inspired by Ibn Sina
(d. 1037), mystics who followed the ideas of Ibn
al-Arabi (d. 1 240), and certain schools of Shii eso-
teric thought, especially Iranian ones. Many who
supported this belief quoted a famous holy hadith
(hadith qudsi ), in which God declares, “1 was a
hidden treasure that desired to be known, then
I created the world so that I would be known.”
The infinite, eternal, unmanifest God desired to
become self-aware, so he created a cosmos that
reflected to a greater or lesser degree his attri-
butes. In other words, the universe was created as
Gods mirror. The human being was the highest
being in God's creation because he, like God, was
capable of self-awareness and most fully reflected
his attributes, especially in the inner heart. With
knowledge of this hidden reality, Sufis believed
they could free themselves from the prison of the
created world, overcome the veils that separated
them from God, and return to the condition of
primal unity with him. They embellished this con-
cept with a doctrine of mystical love, saying that
God created the universe out of love, that human
existence was a painful separation from him,
and that Sufism provided the key for attaining a
reunion of the lover with the divine beloved. Also,
many followers of this school of mysticism con-
ceived of Muhammad as the most perfect human
being, created by God's light at the beginning of

time, and through him the rest of creation became
possible. According to a 16th-century Hindavi
mystical poem written in northern India, “This
lamp of creation was named Muhammad! For him
the Deity fashioned the universe. . . . His name
is Muhammad, king of the three worlds. He was
the inspiration for creation" (Manjhan 5). More-
over, in India, the Islamic emanationist theory of
creation assimilated aspects of Hindu cosmology,
so that God was spoken of as a Hindu god: the
unmanifest Brahma, Vishnu the preserver of the
universe, and Shiva the destroyer of the universe.
His ability to create by speech was identified with
the sacred Hindu mantra of creation, Om.

Today Muslims hold to quranic and emana-
tionist beliefs about creation as matters of faith.
But many are also familiar with scientific theories
of cosmogony and the origin of humans. While
there are those who reject modern scientific theo-
ries, many have accepted them without feeling
that they undermine quranic truths. Indeed, Mus-
lim modernist thinkers in the tradition of SAYYID
Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
( d. 1897), and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) have
sought to demonstrate not only that Islamic
beliefs are compatible with Western science, but
that medieval Muslim scholars actually contrib-
uted to the formation of modern science. Associa-
tions and institutes of Islamic science have arisen
that seek to demonstrate how Quranic cosmology
is compatible with modern scientific theories
about creation and other scientific topics.

See also aya; idolatry; names of God; Perfect
Man; soul and spirit.

Further reading: Maurice Bucaille, The Bible , the Quran
and Science: The Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light
oj Modern Knowledge. Translated by Alastair D. Panned
and Maurice Bucaille (Indianapolis: American Trust
Publications, 1979); Jan Knappert, Islamic Legends: His-
tories of the Heroes , Saints and Prophet of Islam. 2 vols.
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), 1:23-41; Manjhan, M adhum-
alati: An Indian Sufi Romance (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000); Thomas J. O'Shaughnessy, Creation and

174 crescent

the Teaching of the Quran (Rome: Biblical Institute Press,
1985); Anncmaric Schimmcl, “Creation and Judgment in
the Koran and in Mystico-Poetic Interpretation.” In We
Believe in One God , edited by Annemarie Schimmcl and
Abdoljavad Falaturi, 149-177 (New York: Seabury Press,
1979); Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arm's al-maja-
lis Jl qisas al-anbiya, or “ Lives of the Prophets .” Translated
by William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002).

crescent See moon.
crime and punishment

A criminal act is one that involves a serious
violation of social or moral laws and requires
the state or some other official authority to hold
legal proceedings and punish the guilty person or
persons. The laws may be based on social norms
and customs, legislation by political authorities,
or interpretations of commandments attributed
to a supramundanc power or deity. A crime can
therefore be defined as a threat to the social and
political order or even as an offense against God.

In Islamic jurisprudence ( fiqh ) — based on
Quranic revelation, the sunna (custom) of Muham-
mad and the first Muslims, the consensus of reli-
gious jurists, and legal reasoning — there are only
six crimes that warrant punishment as offenses
against God: 1) adultery, 2) false accusation of
adultery, 3) drinking wine, 4) theft, 5) highway
robbery, and 6) APOSTASY (opinion is not unani-
mous on this crime, however). The punishments
for anyone found guilty of these crimes by a quali-
fied Muslim judge are severe; they are not left for
God to decide, as is the case for lesser sins and
transgressions, nor can they be reduced. Adultery
is to be punished by flogging or death by stoning,
false accusation of adultery and drinking wine by
flogging, and theft by amputation of a hand or
foot. According to most legal schools, apostasy
and highway robbery involving homicide require
the death penalty, but highway robbery without
homicide is punished as a theft would be.

Such corporal punishments were called “God’s
boundaries" (huclud Allah), a term borrowed from
the Quran, where it was used in reference to mar-
riage and family laws that should not be trans-
gressed (Q 2:187). In Islamic jurisprudence, the
meaning expanded to include these corporal pun-
ishments, indicating that such punishments had
the force of divine will behind them, not society's.
But classifying them as **boundaries” suggests that
jurists had a sense that huchtcl cases had to meet
stringent standards of justice before a judgment of
guilt could be pronounced. Thus, in cases of adul-
tery, four male witnesses were stipulated, which
made proving that such an offence had occurred
difficult. Also, the penalty of flogging for bearing
false witness in adultery cases legally protected
the accused. In cases of theft, the punishment
of amputation was not to be enforced when the
perpetrator stoic to stay alive or when the stolen
property was of little value or illegal.

Homicide was condemned in the strongest
terms in both the Quran and hadith, but it has
not been classed as a crime that was subject to the
huducl penalties. Premeditated murder was classed
as a major sin forbidden by God that would be
punished on Judgment Day (Q 4:93; 17:33; 25:68-
69). In addition, relatives of the victim were given
the right of retaliation on the basis of the principle
of “a life for a life," and they were given the right
to grant clemency, which could not be done when
the crime was subject to the hudud penalties. In
cases of manslaughter or unintentional homicide,
the guilty party was required to compensate the
family of the deceased for their loss by freeing
a slave and paying a fine, or “blood money" (Q
4:92). For other offenses, judges were allowed to
impose punishments at their discretion, but in
theory, punishment should not exceed the least of
the hudud penalties in severity.

Most nations with Muslim-majority popula-
tions today have adopted criminal codes and penal
systems that are based on Western models. A few
selectively apply the prescribed Islamic punish-
ments, usually in conjunction with government

Crusades 175

Islamization policies. These countries include
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Sudan. Islamist
groups and movements usually place the enforce-
ment of Islamic laws and punishments at the top
of their agendas for radical political and social
change. At the same time, attempts at enforcing
Islamic penalties have provoked protests from
both Muslims and non-Muslims because they are
seen as being either unjustly applied or in viola-
tion of international HUMAN RIGHTS principles.

See also customary law; Islamism; Palestine;

RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS; SHARIA.

Further reading: Muhammad Abdel Halcem, Adel
Omar Sherif, and Kate Daniels, eds., Criminal Justice in
Islam: Judicial Procedure in the Sharia (London: I.B. Tau-
rus, 2003); Rudolph Peters, “The Islamization of Crimi-
nal Law: A Comparative Analysis. Die Welt des Islams
34 (1904): 246-253; Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to
Islamic Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).

Crusades (1095-1291)

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns
conducted by European Christians in the lands
of Asia Minor (Byzantium), Syria, Palestine, and
Egypt. They were more a product of events in
Europe than of those in the Middle East. The
Catholic Church was undergoing a period of
reform in the 11th century and wanted to exert
more authority over secular government. The
church also wanted to limit the amount of fighting
within Europe. Thus, in 1095, when Pope Urban II
(r. 1088-99) called for what would be the first of
many crusades, he described the crusade as a pil-
grimage (for which the sins of the crusaders would
be forgiven) and a defensive war to take back the
Holy Land, especially Jerusalem. Considering the
fact that the Muslims had been controlling the Holy
Land for 450 years, during which time Christian
pilgrims had unhindered access to the holy sites,
it seems clear that the pope wanted to assert his
authority to forgive sins and wage war rather than
to respond defensively to any Muslim aggression

The First Crusade achieved its goal of captur-
ing Jerusalem from the Muslims in 1099. The
crusaders' indiscriminate slaughtering of men,
WOMEN, and CHILDREN, done in the name of God,
has made the Crusades live in infamy for Muslims
and would later become an embarrassment for the
Catholic Church and Christianity in general.

The level of violence decreased after the First
Crusade. The crusaders divided up Palestine and
Syria into city-states ruled by European lords.
With the establishment of the Crusader States, the
need to govern the people peacefully and profit-
ably overshadowed the zeal for holy war. Chris-
tian and Muslim princes made various alliances
with one other, and traders traveled between both
communities.

Nevertheless, the crusaders continued to try
to take more territory, while the Muslims tried to
take back what they had lost. As the crusaders lost
territory to the Muslims, they called for new cru-
sades. During the Third Crusade, the English king
Richard the Lion-Hearted (also known as Richard
1, d. 1199) waged a long campaign against the
Muslim leader Saladin (r. 1174-93). The mutual
respect that characterized their rivalry has made
them the subject of legend.

The Crusades produced numerous geopoliti-
cal consequences. In Europe, they strengthened
the church and deflected internal political rival-
ries — for a time. In the Middle East, they encour-
aged political unification and religious renewal,
which ultimately enabled the Muslims to defeat
the crusaders. The Crusades have come to sym-
bolize confrontation between East and West,
Islam and Christianity, and as such continue to
evoke strong feelings and memories, particularly
among Muslims, for whom European colonialism
and the foundation of Israel have revived previ-
ously dormant memories of the medieval wars
between Christians and Muslims.

See also Assassins; colonialism; Christianity
and Islam; Istanbul; jihad.

Heather N. Keaney

' Css ^ 176 customary law

Further reading: Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of
the Crusades (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984); P. M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades: The Near East
from the Eleventh Century to 1517 (New York: Longman.
1986); Amin Maalouf, The Crusades through Arab Eyes.
Translated by Jon Rothschild (London: A1 Saqi Books,
1984). Reprint, Cairo, Egypt: The American University
in Cairo Press, 1990); Kenneth Setton, ed., A History of
the Crusades. Vols. 1-6 (Madison: University of Wiscon-
sin Press, 1969).

customary law (Arabic: ada, urf; also adat)

Customary law in Islam consists of traditional
customs and practices on the local level that are
not directly based on the Quran and hadith but
that still have legal weight. Before the modern era,
it was largely unwritten and uncodificd. Custom-
ary law pertains to matters of marriage, divorce,
inheritance, murder, honor crimes, the status of
WOMEN, and land tenure.

Historically, when a town, country, or region
fell under Muslim rule, the unwritten local laws
and customs were never completely swept away
and replaced by those of the sharia, or Islamic law.
Rather, they coexisted alongside Islamic law, or
they were assimilated and continued to be honored
in the new Islamicate society. Historians of Islamic
law have noted that local traditions were not as a
rule formally recognized as one of the sources of
law (Quran, SUNNA, IJMAA [consensus], and qiyas
[analogy]), but Muslim jurists did discuss them
and legitimate them as sunna or ijmaa. On the
other hand, a custom or practice that conserva-
tive ulama determined to be blatantly un-Islamic
could be condemned as an illegal B1DAA (innova-
tion). Customary law was also invoked in advisory
opinions, or fatwas. By such means, local custom
contributed to the formation of the major Islamic
legal traditions. Thus, the Maliki Legal School
embodied the local customs of Medina, while the
Hanafi Legal School embodied those of southern
Iraq, a much more cosmopolitan region than the

Arabian Peninsula. Western scholars, moreover,
have maintained that both the Quran and the
sunna embody customary laws present in the Hijaz
prior to the appearance of Islam. If their theory
is correct, therefore, what eventually became the
universal sharia originated in the local customary
law of western Arabia and was later continuously
shaped by the indigenous legal traditions of the
wider Middle East and beyond. Muslims of conser-
vative outlook may refute this theory by claiming
that Islamic law is based more on revelation from
God, but they must still account for the differences
between the Islamic legal schools and the variety
of local customs that have acquired legal legiti-
macy in different parts of the Muslim world.

In the Middle East and perhaps even more so
in Africa and Asia, customary law has coexisted
with religious law. Before the modern era, it may
even have surpassed it on the level of the locality,
especially among tribal populations and settled
communities living in remote areas. During the
19th and 20th centuries, Dutch colonial officials
attempted to use customary law (adat) as a way
to weaken the authority of Muslim jurists and
the influence of the sharia in Indonesia. Modern
Islamic reform movements and Islamic revivalism
do not yet appear to have directed their ener-
gies against customary law in most countries,
however. They arc more directed against colonial
and postcolonial Western laws and institutions.
Customary law appears to still be widely valued as
part of the indigenous cultural heritage.

See also adultery; authority; crime and pun-
ishment; fatwa; fjqh.

Further reading: Noel James Coulson, “Muslim Cus-
tom and Case Law.” In Islamic Law and Legal Theory,
edited by Ian Edge, 259 — 270 (New York: New York
University Press, 1996); Wazir Jahan Karim, Women and
Culture: Between Malay Adat and Islam (Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press. 1992); Gideon Libson, “On the Devel-
opment of Custom as a Source of Law in Islamic Law."
Islamic Law and Society 4, no. 2 (1997): 131-155.

da aw a (Arabic: invitation, religious call,
summons) (also dawa , Persian dawat, or
Indonesian/Malaysian dakwah)

Daawa is a term that has acquired a number of
meanings in the history of Islam, but it is mainly
thought of as religious outreach for purposes of
conversion or bringing lapsed Muslims back into
the faith. In the Quran, it is God's invitation to
humans to worship and believe in him (Q 14:10;
10:25) and humans' calling upon God to hear
their prayers (Q 14:33; 7:180). In the Quranic
view, the prophets are the ones who effectively
transmit God's call to their peoples to sway them
from praying to false gods or idols and to guide
them on the monotheistic path to salvation.
Prophets and others who undertake the challeng-
ing task of conveying God's daawa are called dais
(“inviters" or “summoners"). Moreover, according
to the Quran, the whole community of believers
is charged with “calling to goodness, commanding
the right and forbidding the wrong'' (Q 3:104). In
other contexts, Muslims used the word daawa as
a synonym for the call to prayer ( adhan ) and as an
alternate name for the first chapter of the Quran,
the Fatiha (Q 1), which is a verbal prayer for
God's assistance, guidance, and mercy.

During the eighth century, leaders of the
Abbasid movement in Iraq and Iran gave daawa

an overt political meaning by making it a form of
religious propaganda. They called upon faithful
Muslims to help them bring the community back
to the “true" Islam by overthrowing the Umayyad
Caliphate in Syria. Their efforts proved success-
ful; they ended Umayyad rule and created the
Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258) in Baghdad. At
about the same time as the Abbasid movement,
early Shii groups, several of which had supported
the Abbasids until the Abbasids turned against
them, called upon Muslims to accept the authority
of their imams, the descendants of Muhammad's
family (ah l AL-BAYT) whom the Shia believed to be
the divinely chosen leaders of the Muslim com-
munity. The Ismailis, a minority sect of the Shia,
used daawa to challenge the claims of their rivals,
the Twelve-Imam Shia, undermine Sunni rulers,
and win support for their own leaders, whom they
believed to be divinely guided and possessors of
secret knowledge (BATIN) from God. The Ismaili
rulers of the Fatimid dynasty (909-1171) in
North Africa and Egypt organized a daawa move-
ment to promote their claims to divine authority
and to oppose the Abbasid Caliphate with one
of their own. Their dais (missionaries) were sent
from Cairo to far reaches of the dar al-Islam ,
where they spread Ismaili doctrines publicly and
covertly, recruiting support for the imams. The

177

,Css5S 178 daawa

Nizari Ismailis in Iran, known as the Assassins,
also made extensive use of daawa on behalf of
their leaders. Today, some branches of the Ismailis
even call themselves “the Dawat.”

In the modern period, the meaning of reli-
gious outreach has undergone further develop-
ment. Daawa has become a keystone for many
contemporary Islamic organizations and institu-
tions in countries with Muslim majorities and also
in those where they are minorities. The collapse
of the last Islamicate empires (the Ottomans,
Safavids, and Mughals) after the 17th century,
combined with the onset of European colonial
domination in many Muslim lands, led Muslims
to use religious outreach in order to achieve
unity among themselves, to convert others, and
to engage non-Muslims in intercultural and inter-
faith dialogue, especially in Europe and North
America. The Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid 11 (r.
1876-1901) and other promoters of pan-1slamism
used daawa in an attempt to unify all Muslims
under his religious and political authority. The
Ottoman Empire came to an end after World War
1, but the task of fostering Muslim unity through
daawa has been taken up anew by organizations
such as the Muslim World League and the Orga-
nization of the Islamic Conference.

The increased Christian missions in Muslim
lands that accompanied European colonization
caused Muslims to organize their own mission-
ary activities in response. Since the early decades
of the 20th century, significant effort has been
dedicated to educating Muslims about the core
elements of their religion so as to encourage an
internal religious revival and help them contend
either with Christian missionaries or with the
influence of modern ideas and non-lslamic life-
styles and customs. The governments of Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, Egypt, and Pakistan have
created institutions to train imams and commu-
nity leaders, develop modern methods for propa-
gating Islam, hold conferences, and publish daawa
literature. Their outreach campaigns have been
conducted in African countries and the newly

independent Central Asian republics of the former
Soviet Union, as well as the Middle East and parts
of Asia. Activist Islamist organizations, such as the
Muslim Brotherhood, also regard outreach as an
important part of their strategy for achieving their
religious and political goals. The Daawa Party
of Iraq was created by Shii religious leaders to
oppose the spread of COMMUNISM and secular Arab
nationalism. After the fall of Saddam Husayn's
Baath Party government in 2003, it became one
of Iraq's leading political parties. The Tabijghi
Jamaat, founded in 1927 in India, is a very popu-
lar nongovernmental Sunni missionary movement
that carries its message of simple religious piety
door-to-door in many parts of the world.

Like Christian missions, Muslim daawa orga-
nizations engage in charity and relief efforts.
Their mission also includes building neighbor-
hood mosques, opening medical clinics, and
establishing printing presses. Pious women, many
of them veiled, have been increasingly visible in
such activities. Mosque-based organizations in
non-Muslim countries undertake daawa activities
in their communities to attract lapsed Muslims
and to educate non-Muslim leaders, officials, and
the wider public about Islam. Such efforts have
been particularly successful in pluralistic coun-
tries such as the United States. Muslim organiza-
tions have made extensive use of publications,
electronic media, and most recently the Internet
to conduct their outreach campaigns.

See also Ahmadiyya; almsgiving; Christianity
and Islam; dar al-Isla m and dar al-harb; dialogue;
education; imam; madrasa; Shiism.

Further reading: Thomas Arnold, The Preaching of
Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith ,
3d ed. (London: Luzac, 1935); Farhad Daftary, A Short
History of the Ismailis (Princeton, N.J.: Marcus Weiner,
1998); Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic
Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 2005), 57-78; Larry Poston,
Islamic Daw ah in the West: Muslim Missionary Activ-
ity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam (Oxford:

Daawa Party of Iraq 179

Oxford University Press, 1992); Jane I. Smith, Islam in
America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000),
160-167.

Daawa Party of Iraq (Religious Call Party
[Arabic: Hizb al-Daawa al-lslamiyya]; also
Dawa, Islamic Dawa Party)

The Daawa Party is one of the two leading Shii
political parties in Iraq. It was founded in the
holy city of Najaf by Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr
(d. 1980) and other members of the Shii clergy
in 1957. Its original purpose was to oppose com-
munist and Arab nationalist movements that
were gaining strength in Iraq and to reverse the
declining influence of the Shii ulama. It drew its
first recruits from the religious colleges of Najaf
and Karbala, but traditional-minded ulama did
not approve of the party's innovations. To avoid
detection, the Daawa formed secret cells of party
members, resembling those of Iraqi communists
and Baathists. From 1964 to 1968, after the fall
of the leftist government of Abd al-Karim Qasim
(d. 1963), Daawa was able to operate more openly
and recruited new members from college students
and intellectuals in other Iraqi cities. Many new
recruits also came from the Thawra district on the
northeastern edge of Baghdad, a low-income quar-
ter (now known as Sadr City) of Shii immigrants
from the countryside. Outside Iraq, it established
branches in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan,
and Britain. Strengthening its grip on the coun-
try in the late 1960s, Iraq's Baath government
launched a repressive campaign against the Shia,
forcing Shii groups to go underground.

Daawa leaders were executed by the govern-
ment during the 1970s, but the party was still
able to organize antigovernment demonstrations
on major Shii religious holidays. Party activ-
ism intensified in the aftermath of the Iranian
Revolution op 1978-79, which was inspired by
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989), a senior
Iranian cleric who had lived and taught in Najaf
from 1964 to 1978. The goals and tactics of

Daawa became more radical. It called for estab-
lishing an Islamic government in Iraq, created a
terrorist operations unit, and conducted armed
attacks against the Baathists and their allies in
other Persian Gulf States during the lran-lraq
war of 1980-88. It attempted to assassinate Iraq's
president, Saddam Husayn, and other government
officials, and it was allegedly involved in the
bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kuwait in 1983.
The Iraqi government officially outlawed Daawa
in 1980 and declared that party members would
be subject to execution. Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr
and other Shii leaders were arrested and put to
death. Many members fled to Iran, where they
set up a headquarters in exile, supported by that
country's revolutionary government. Although the
party has preached peaceful coexistence between
Sunnis and the Shia, together with Iraqi national
unity, the leadership and ideology of the party has
largely been shaped by Shii doctrines and sym-
bols. For example, party tracts at the time stated
that the highest levels of leadership should be
held by mujtahids , a designation for Shii religious
authorities. Nevertheless, during their exile in
Iran, effective leadership of the party shifted to
lay members, such as Ibrahim Jaafari (b. 1947), a
physician who had joined the party in the 1960s.

The party remained a staunch opponent of
the government of Saddam Husayn but shifted to
improve its relations with Western countries after
the Gulf War of 1990-91, when an international
coalition army drove Husayn's Iraqi forces out
of Kuwait. After Husayn's government was over-
thrown by the United States in 2003, the Daawa
Party reestablished itself in Iraq, and party mem-
bers joined the new provisional government. In
January 2005, it became a leading member of the
United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of political par-
ties elected to govern the occupied country until
a constitutional government could be formed.
Daawa members won control of important gov-
ernment ministries, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the
head of Daawa, became the country's new prime
minister. He was succeed by another party loyal-

1 80 dai

ist, Nouri al-Maliki (b. 1950), in May 2006. The
Daawa Party favors the creation of a government
based on Islamic law but no longer requires
that it be ruled by Shii ulama. Its major partner
(and rival) is the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SCIR1, changed to Supreme
Islamic Iraqi Council in 2007), a Shii party that
was established in Iran by Iraqi exiles during the
1980s. Like the Daawa Party, its followers had also
returned to Iraq as soon as Husayn's government
had fallen. The strongholds of support for both
parties are located in the Shii cities of southern
Iraq, and both enjoy cordial relations with the
Islamic Republic of Iran.

See also Baath Party; communism; politics and
Islam; Shiism.

Further reading: T. M. Aziz, “The Role of Muhammad
Baqir al-Sadr in Shii Political Activism in Iraq from 1958
to 1980,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 25
(1993): 207-222; Amatzia Baram, “Two Roads to Revo-
lutionary Shii Fundamentalism in Iraq: Hizb al-Dawa
al-Islamiyya and the Supreme Council of the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq." In Accounting for Fundamentalisms:
The Dynamic Character of Movements, edited by Martin
E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, 531-586 (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press. 1994).

dai See DAAWA\ ISMAILI SHIISM.

dajjal See Antichrist.

Damascus

Damascus has been the capital of the Arab Repub-
lic of Syria since 1946. It is densely populated,
with about 3.5 million inhabitants, or about 19
percent of the total population of the country.
About 40 miles from the Mediterranean coast, it
is situated on the edge of the desert at the foot of
Mount Qassioun, one of the massifs of the eastern
slopes of the Anti-Lebanon. The Barada River

I

The Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, Syria (Juan
E. Campo)

crosses the city and provides water to the rich
agricultural area known as the Ghuta, which Mus-
lim tradition regards as one of the three earthly
PARADISES, along with Samarkand (in modern
Uzbekistan) and al-Ubulla (in Iraq).

The exact date of the foundation of the city
remains unclear, although archaeological evi-
dence suggests the fourth millennium b.c.e. as the
beginning date for continued human habitation.
The first historical mention of the city refers to
its conquest by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmoses
III in the 15th century B.C.E. Damascus was later
inhabited by Assyrians, Babylonians, Achaeme-
nids, Greeks, Nabateans, Romans, and finally the

Daoud Ahmed 1 81

Byzantine Empire up until the Muslim conquest
in 635 c.E. During the rule of the Umayyad Caliph-
ate (662-750), Damascus became the capital of
this, the first Islamic dynasty, and an important
cultural and economic center of the region. They
built the beautiful congregational mosque that
still stands in the heart of the old city. In 750, the
Abbasids defeated the Umayyads and installed
their capital in Baghdad. Damascus then became
a provincial town subject to the rule of different
Islamic dynasties that conquered the area. Only in
the 12th century did Damascus regain its splendor
under the rule of the Zenkid Turkish prince Nur
al-Din (d. 1174) and his Ayyubid successor, Sala-
din (r. 1174-93). It became a center of religious
learning and literary production. In 1260, the city
was devastated by the same Mongol invasion that
had obliterated the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad
in 1258.

By 1517, the Ottoman Turks had conquered
all the territory from Syria to Egypt. Under the
Turkish dynasty, the city of Aleppo, in the north
of Syria, became the most important economic
center of the region. Nonetheless, Damascus still
played an important economic and religious role,
as is attested to by the numerous khans (trade
centers and rest houses) and the proliferation of
religious sites. Along with Cairo and Baghdad,
it was used as one of the main staging points for
caravans that conveyed pilgrims to Mecca for the
annual HAJj.

During World War 1, under the British prom-
ise of the creation of an Arab Syrian state, British
troops commanded by General Allcnby entered
the city in October 1918 and established the Syr-
ian Kingdom of Amir Eaysal ibn Husayn ibn Ali
(r. 1918-20), whom the British would later make
king of Iraq. The British occupation violated the
terms of the Sykes-Picot agreement signed with
France in 1916, according to which Syria and
Lebanon were to remain under French influence.
On July 25, 1920, France entered Damascus and
occupied Syria and Lebanon, establishing a colo-
nial mandate system in the area. In 1925, Damas-

cus became the capital of the federal state of Syria
under French mandate, and it remained the capi-
tal after Syria's independence in 1946.

See also cities; Ottoman dynasty.

Maria del Mar Logrono

Further reading: Afif Bahnassi, Damascus: The Capital
of the Umayyad Dynasty (Damascus: Dar Tlass, 2002);
Lynn Theo Simarski, "Visions of Damascus.'' Saudi
Aramco World 42, no. 2 (March/April 1991): 20-29.

Daoud Ahmed (1891-1980) pioneer American
Muslim

Sheikh Al-Haj Daoud Ahmed Faisal led one of
the early successful efforts to spread Islam in
America. Born in Morocco, he moved with his
family to Bermuda at the age of 10. He subse-
quently migrated to the United States in 1907.
He attended the Juilliard School in Manhattan,
where he mastered the violin and specialized in
both classical and jazz music. In 1920, he married
Dakota Station, later known as Sayidah Khadijah.

Through the 1920s, he associated with several
Muslim groups, including the Ahmadiyya, but
in 1928, with his wife's assistance, he founded
the Islamic Propagation Center of America in
Brooklyn. Located at 143 State Street, it came to
be known informally as the State Street Mosque.
From Brooklyn, he spread Sunni Muslim teach-
ings, somewhat in competition with the effort of
Noble Drew Ali, to propagate his form of sectarian
Islam. In 1934, he purchased the Talbot Estate in
East Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York, and
turned it into a Muslim community known as
Madinah al-Salaam (City of Peace). He was able
to sustain the community for eight years, but it
finally folded for financial reasons.

At some point, he made the hajj to Mecca,
possibly at the end of the 1930s. In 1943, he
added the title sheikh (Arabic shaykh) to his name
as a sign of a relationship with King Abd al-Aziz
ibn Saud (d. 1953), who had a decade earlier
consolidated his control of modern Saudi Arabia.

182 dar al-lslam and dar al-harb

Both Abd al-Aziz and Shaykh Khalid of Jordan
gave Daoud a charter to establish Islamic work
in North America. By this time, he had opened
centers in several American cities, but in 1944, he
incorporated his following as the Muslim Mission
in America.

Sheikh Daoud offered Islam as the rightful and
original FAITH of African Americans and a means
of their throwing off their self-understanding as
Negroes. At the same time, however, he refused to
slant his presentation and opposed the racial theo-
ries of both Noble Drew Ali and Elijah Muhammad
and the Nation of Islam. He saw Islam as a way to
the establishment of human equality and human
rights as the means of reaching ultimate peace.

Sheikh Daoud continued to lead his move-
ment, soon eclipsed by the Nation of Islam,
until his death in February 1980. Along the way,
he authored one book, Islam the True Faith , the
Religion oj Humanity (1965), a broad survey of
Muslim teachings, leaders, and history. Since his
death, the Muslim Mission has been absorbed into
the larger Muslim community.

See also African Americans, Islam among;
daawa; renewal and reform movements.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Sheikh Al-Haj Daoud Ahmed Faisal,
Islam the True Faith, the Religion of Humanity (Brooklyn,
N.Y.: Islamic Mission of America, 1965); Adib Rashad,
Islam, Black Nationalism & Slavery: A Detailed History
(Baltimore: Writers Inc., 1995); Malachi Z. York, Shaikh
Daoud vs. W D. Fard (Eastonton, Ga.: Holy Tabernacle
Ministries, n.d.).

dar al-lslam and dar al-harb (Arabic,
House of Islam and House of War)

Dar al-lslam and dar al-harb are concepts used in
medieval Islamic legal and political thought to dif-
ferentiate territories under Muslim rule where the
sharia is followed from those that are not. In the
dar al-lslam, the sharia was observed, and non-

Muslim residents were to be given “protected'’
(DH/MM/) status as long as they paid their taxes
and did not act to subvert the Islamic religious
and political order. Non-Muslims were allowed to
enter Islamic territories temporarily from the dar
al-harb for peaceful purposes, such as commerce
and diplomacy, after they had received a guarantee
of security from a Muslim in the dar al-lslam.

Any territory where Muslim rule and the sharia
did not prevail was classified as the dar al-harb.
According to jurists, Muslims were obliged to bring
it under Islamic rule, cither through surrender by
treaty or through conquest in jihad. Conversion
was not the primary intent of this doctrine, how-
ever. The concept was not expressed in the Quran
and HADITH, but it was grounded in the early histor-
ical experience of the Islamic community (vmma)
as it expanded by conquest under the leadership of
Muhammad from its base in Medina into the rest of
the Arabian Peninsula. Under his successors, this
expansion extended to the rest of the Middle East
and North Africa, Andalusia, and significant parts
of Asia. At the height of the Abbasid Caliphate
(10th century), the dar al-lslam was a broad swath
of territory that reached more than 4,000 miles
from the Atlantic coasts of Spain and northwest
Africa in the west to the eastern borderlands of Iran
and Afghanistan. The world outside this territory,
therefore, was considered the dar al-harb.

The ulama adapted this polarized concept
of the world to changing historical realities. For
example, Shafii jurists recognized a House of
Truce (dar al-sulh ), which allowed for peaceful
relations with non-Muslim powers as long as they
agreed to pay taxes to Muslim authorities. When
Muslim lands fell under the control of non-Mus-
lims, jurists instructed Muslims living there to
either fight or remove themselves to the dar al-
lslam. This was what Maliki jurists recommended
to Muslims in the territories of Andalusia that
had been taken by Christian armies during the
Reconquista. It was also the view held by leaders
of revivalist movements in British India, such as
the Tariqa-i Muhammad (Muhammadan Path) led

Dara Shikoh 1 83

by Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (d. 1831). Other jurists,
however, ruled that as long as Muslims were
secure and allowed to fulfill their religious duties,
they could accept non-Muslim governments and
consider themselves to still be in the dar al-Islam.

With the end of the last Muslim empires and
the rise of new nation-states in the 20th century,
the concepts of the dar al-Islam and the dar al-harb
have been replaced by international laws, treaties,
and conventions governing relations between
states. Nonetheless, they still have their place in
the Islamic legal heritage, and they are invoked
from time to time in Muslim political rhetoric.

See also law, international; politics and
Islam; West Africa.

Further reading: John Kelsay, Islam and War: A Study in
Comparative Ethics (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John
Knox Press, 1993); Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in
the Law of Islam (Washington. D.C.: Middle East Insti-
tute, 1955).

Dara Shikoh (Dara Shukoh, Dara
Shikuh) (1615-1659) Mughal prince known for
his writings on Sufism and liberal attitudes toward
other religions, especially Hinduism
Dara Shikoh was the first son of one of the most
powerful sovereigns of India's Mughal dynasty*,
Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58). In his autobiography,
Dara wrote that his father longed for an heir to
the throne and prayed that Sufi saint Muin al-
Din Chishti would fulfill his wish. The next year,
Queen Mumtaz Mahal gave birth to Dara near the
saints shrine in Ajmer. Dara spent his early years
in the palace and then was assigned command of
an army when he was 17 years old. His father also
gave him administrative appointments and high
state honors to qualify him to be his successor and
avoid dynastic conflict. Nevertheless, when Shah
Jahan became ill in 1657, Dara and three younger
brothers, Muhammad Shuja, Murad, and Aurang-
zeb, engaged in a life-and-death struggle for their
father's Peacock Throne. Aurangzeb and Murad

accused Dara of being an apostate because of his
involvement with Hindu yogis and ascetics. Never
very adept at war, Dara was defeated on the battle-
field, tried by the ulama for apostasy, and executed
in 1659. Aurangzeb took the throne for himself
and did away with his remaining brothers.

Dara Shikoh, like his great-grandfather Akbar
(d. 1605), is usually placed within the liberal wing
of South Asian Islam, in juxtaposition to hard-
line religious conservatives such as his brother
Aurangzeb. His interest in religion first became
evident in 1640, when he was 25 years old. It
was at this time that he compiled a biographical
dictionary about Muhammad, the Prophets wives
and family, the first caliphs, the Shii Imams, and
hundreds of Sufis, particularly those of the Qadiri,
Naqshbandi, Chishti, Kubrawi, and Suhrawardi
orders. During the same year, he and his older
sister, Jahanara (d. 1681), were initiated into the
Qadiri Sufi Order by Mullah Shah, a prominent
Sufi master who had been serving as their spiri-
tual guide. Dara wrote several books and tracts on
Sufi doctrine and practices, reflecting the stages of
his journey on the Sufi path. His most important
comparative work was Majmaa al-bahrayn (The
confluence of the two oceans), in which he sought
to prove that Islam and the Vedanta tradition in
Hindu religious thought shared the same essential
truths. For example, he equated the great names
of God in Islam with those given by Hindus to
their absolute cosmic being. He also identified the
Islamic idea of resurrection with Hindu notions
of liberation. Shortly before his death, Dara trans-
lated chapters of the Sanskrit philosophical com-
mentaries on the Vedas known as the Upanishads
into Persian. Indeed, it was through his transla-
tion, in which he had the assistance of Hindu
pandits and ascetics, that the Upanishads became
familiar to scholars of Indian language and litera-
ture in the West. Dara also was involved with the
translation of the Bhagavad Gita, the most well
known sacred text in the Hindu religion.

See also Hinduism and Islam; Persian language
and literature; Sufism.

1 84 Dar ul-Arqam

Further reading: Muhammad Dara Shikuh. Majmaa
al-bakrayn , or The Mingling of the Two Oceans. Edited
and translated by M. Mahfouz ul-Haq (Calcutta: Asiatic
Society, 1929); John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire
(New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Saiyid
Athar Abbas Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India , 2 vols.
(Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1983).

Dar ul-Arqam (Arabic: House of Arqam)

The Dar ul-Arqam is the most influential and
popular Islamic renewal movement to have
originated in Southeast Asia. It was founded in
Malaysia in 1968 by Shaykh Ashaari Muhammad
at-Tamimi (b. 1938), a member of the Awrad
Muhammadiyya Sufi Order based in Mecca. Dar
ul-Arqam took its name from al-Arqam ibn Abi
al-Arqam, one of the Companions of the Prophet
who gave refuge to Muhammad in his home. A
number of early conversions to Islam took place
there. The Dar ul-Arqam movement began in the
Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, where mem-
bers used a home to conduct grassroot religious
education classes. Shaykh Ashaari encouraged
his followers to study the Quran and Islamic
teaching to make religion part of their everyday
lives. The focus of his movement was on individ-
ual self-improvement in conformity with Islamic
values, not on trying to seize political power
and impose Islamic religious law. The movement
grew to a membership of about 10,000 in the
1980s, with up to 100,000 supporters. This was
the outcome of an effective missionary (daawa)
program involving public lectures, print and
visual media, and even concerts. Dar ul-Arqam
opened villages and schools throughout Malay-
sia, as well as branches elsewhere in Southeast
Asia and in countries as far away as China, Aus-
tralia, and the United States. It also had branches
in the Middle East. Aside from its active outreach
program, it successfully invested its resources
in agricultural and commercial projects geared
toward the emerging capitalist economy. The
creation of the Al Arqam Group of Companies,

composed of more than 400 businesses, was
announced in 1993.

Dar ul-Arqams extraordinary successes in the
worlds of religion and business had serious politi-
cal repercussions. Its increased influence among
wealthy and powerful members of Malaysian society
caused the government of Prime Minister Mahatir
(r. 1981-98) to take measures against it. In 1994, it
was deemed to be a “deviant cult” by the National
Fatwa Council, the Islamic arm of the state. Shaykh
Ashaari, who was accused of claiming to have
had direct contact with God and the Prophet, was
arrested and held without trial. After a televised
confession broadcast from the National Mosque, he
was released from prison and placed under house
arrest for 10 years. The movement was officially
disbanded in 1994, but it was allowed to reconsti-
tute itself as a multinational business called Rufaqa
Corporation, for which an ailing Shaykh Ashaari
has served as the chief executive officer. Early in
2005, he published a book, Civilizational Islam , in
which he expressed his support for Malaysia's new
prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

See also fatwa; renewal and reform move-
ments; Sufism.

Further reading: Ahmad Fauzi Abdul Hamid, “Sufi
Undercurrents in Islamic Revivalism: Traditional, Post-
Traditional and Modern Images of Islamic Activism
in Malaysia.” Islamic Quarterly 45 (2001): 177-198;
25 Years of Darul Arqam: The Struggle of Abuya Syeikh
Imam Ashaari Muhammad at-Tamimi (Kuala Lumpur:
Penerbitan Abuya Dengan Izin Asoib International
Limited, 1993).

darwish See dervish.

David (Arabic: Dawud, Daud) biblical king
of Israel and Judah who is revered by Muslims as a
prophet of God

David is known to the followers of all three Abra-
hamic religions. Modern scholars of the Bible esti-

death 1 85

mate that he lived during the late 11th and early
10th century B.C.E. According to the narratives
given in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings of the
Hebrew Bible, David rose from humble origins to
become a legendary man of war and king of Israel
and Judah. He made Jerusalem his capital, which
came to be known as “the city of David.” He was
the father of Solomon, who succeeded him to
the throne and built the city’s first temple for the
god of the Israelites on Mount Zion. David is also
remembered for having been the author of many
of the poetic compositions contained in the bibli-
cal book of Psalms. In both Jewish and Christian
scriptures, the idea developed that God's future
messiah, or anointed savior, would come from
David’s descendants. The Gospels of Matthew
(Mt. 1:1-17) and Luke (Lk. 3:23-83) clearly link
Jesus’ heritage to the royal household of David,
and in Matthew, he is called “the son of David."

The Quran mentions David 16 times in verses
that present him as a biblical figure, as well as in
passages that present him as a Muslim prophet.
Thus, there are brief statements about his slaying
Goliath (Q 2:251), receiving a kingdom and wis-
dom from God (Q 38:20), and being associated
with Solomon (Q 27:15). More important, he is
said to have received the book of Psalms ( zabur )
from God (Q 4:163; 17:55), which qualifies him
as a prophet in Islamic tradition. David is also
called Gods CALIPH ( khalifa ) on Earth (Q 38:26),
meaning his deputy. The biblical stories about his
relations with Saul, Jonathan, and his son Absa-
lom; his wars with the Philistines; the capture of
Jerusalem; and his affair with Bathsheba and the
death of her husband Uriah are completely omit-
ted from the quranic narratives. The HADITH con-
centrated on his dedication to prayer and fasting,
but not on the biblical stories.

More developed portrayals of David were
provided in Quran commentaries (tafsir) and
legendary stories (qisas) about the prophets, such
as those collected by al-Tabari (d. 911) and al-
Thalabi (d. 1036). These narratives drew upon
rabbinic traditions that circulated among Jewish

communities of the Middle East centuries prior
to the appearance of Islam. This was where Ara-
bic versions of the stories of Saul, Goliath, and
Bathsheba (“that woman”) were recounted. Such
stories gave readers more details about how David
received the Psalms and how pleasant his voice
was when he recited them. He was also shown to
be a God-fearing man who repented for his affair
with Uriah's wife. Sufis would later remember
him especially for his asceticism and repentance.
David's connection with Jerusalem is not men-
tioned in the Quran, hadith, commentaries, or
qisas literature but is included in a specific genre
of medieval Arabic literature that dealt with the
sanctity of the city.

See also holy books; Judaism and Islam; proph-
ets AND PROPHECY.

Further reading: Gordon Darnell Newby, I he Making
of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biog-
raphy of Muhammad (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1989); Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thal-
abi, Arais al-majalis fi qisas al-anbiya, or “Lives of the
Prophets . ” Translated by William M. Brinner (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 2002).

death

Islamic discussions on death and the afterlife
are based on the teachings of the Quran and the
hadith. The Quran refers to death in 36 chapters
and the Judgment Day in 29 chapters. Notwith-
standing the diversity of the contexts in which
death is discussed, the themes of returning to
God and taking responsibility for ones actions
are essential in these discussions. The Quran and
hadith explain that a person has only one life and
one chance to prepare him- or herself for the after-
life. Therefore, death is the terminus that gives
purpose and meaning to the life of the individual
who is on a journey back to God. The dead arc
resurrected on Judgment Day for an evaluation of
how they lived their lives and whether they will
go to heaven or hell.

186 Delhi

Varied interpretations of death by Muslims
throughout the centuries have produced a com-
plex eschatology that can be divided into the
majority Muslim and the gnostic mystical views.
The majority perspective adheres to the teach-
ings of the Quran as they were transmitted
through Muhammad. These teachings warn and
guide believers away from sin and remind them
of the rewards and punishments of the afterlife.
The gnostic mystical view upholds an esoteric
understanding of death that is direct, personal,
and unmediated. This kind of understanding
is attained by means of mystical practices and
through visionary discoveries. The mystics, who
claim they have experienced death while alive,
describe how their souls departed from their bod-
ies and the world of matter and journeyed into the
realm of death. There they have seen the myster-
ies of Judgment Day and have experienced God's
attributes of might and majesty. Thus, their belief
in the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet is
based on the personal insights they have gained
through the death journey. Some Muslims inter-
pret death as self-sacrifice and as an expression of
FAITH. They refer to the Quran, which considers
those who die on the path of Islam and for the sake
of other Muslims to still be alive. Such a person
(martyr, or shahid ), similar to innocent children,
escapes the intermediary stage between death and
resurrection ( barzakh ) and goes to paradise. The
culture of valorizing martyrs — those who die on
the path of Islam — has been enforced among the
Shii Muslims for centuries. Their paradigm martyr
is the grandson of Muhammad, Imam Husayn ibn
Ali, who died in battle at Karbala at the hands
of his political rivals in 680. Imam Husayn is
the central figure in the mourning plays that are
annually held in commemorating his death and
in celebrating the fate and faith of the Muslim
martyrs. In the final analysis, for Muslims, life
and death are interconnected through ones sus-
ceptibility to the realities of the unseen that are
transmitted by the Prophet or experienced by the
individual mystic.

See also baqa and fana; cemetery; funerary
rituals; martyrdom; Shiism; suicide.

Tiroozeh Papan-Matin

Further reading: Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,
The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife, Kitab dhikr
al-mawt wa-ma badahu. Book XL of The Revival of the
Religious Sciences, Ihya ulum al-Din. Translated by T. ].
Winter (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1995);
Jane Idlcman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad.
The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Delhi

The capital of modern India, greater Delhi is situ-
ated on the west bank of the Yamuna River in the
northern part of the country. It encompasses an
area of about 572 square miles, which includes the
modern city of New Delhi, and is home to nearly
14 million people. Today, the majority of the city's
inhabitants are Hindus from northern India, and
Muslims constitute its largest minority. There arc
also a large number of Sikhs, many of whom fled
to the city from the Punjab at the time of the vio-
lent 1947 partition, when India became an inde-
pendent country. Delhi is also home to Buddhists,
Jains, Christians, and an international diplomatic
corps that serves at embassies in New Delhi, the
southern part of the city.

The history of Delhi is actually one of at
least eight different fortress cities built in close
proximity to each other over many centuries,
each designed to satisfy the needs and tastes of a
different group of rulers. The earliest is thought
to have been Indraprastha, a Hindu city that
existed 3000 years ago. Muslims from Afghani-
stan invaded at the end of the 12th century and
located the capital of the Delhi Sultanate there
in 1193. The dynasties of the sultanate situated
their fortress cities on lands on the south side
of modern Delhi. Later rulers transferred the
capital to Agra or Lahore, but eventually they
returned to Delhi. The Mughal ruler Shah Jahan

'Css^S 188 Delhi

(r. 1628-58) built Delhi's most spectacular Isl-
amicate urban complex, which he called Shahja-
hanabad (Shah Jahan City). It was located north
of the previous city sites, on the west bank of
the Yamuna.

Among Delhi's most important Islamic monu-
ments are the Qutb Minar complex, comprised
of a towering MINARET and the Quwwat al-Islam
communal MOSQUE. Construction of these build-
ings began in 1193 and continued intermittently
for several centuries. They were built where a
Hindu temple once stood and incorporate sec-
tions from the temple walls and local architec-
tural features, symbolically demonstrating both
that the Hindu religion was being subordinated
to Islam and that Islam was adapting itself to its
Indian environment. About three miles north-
east of this site, Sultan Ala al-Din Muhammad
Khilji (r. 1296-1316) built the fortress city of
Siri, near which the Chishti saint Nizam al-Din
Awliya (d. 1325) located his mosque and Sufi
hospice. Nizam al-Din's shrine is still considered
to be one of the most sacred centers in Delhi for
Indian Muslims. Other rulers sponsored the con-
struction of communal mosques, domed tombs,
and religious schools, which combined Middle
Eastern architectural traditions with indigenous
ones. At Shahjahanabad, the most impressive
structures that still stand are the Jama Masjid, the
largest communal mosque in India, and the Red
Fort, with its palaces, gardens, kiosks, audience
halls, administrative offices, and private mosque
for the ruler.

Delhi was besieged by British forces during
the 1857 rebellion, and significant areas of the
city were razed to the ground. The British not
only eradicated the Mughal dynasty but also
rebuilt the city to serve their needs as India's new
sovereigns. Military cantonments were situated
in strategic areas, and a residential neighborhood
known as the Civil Lines for British administra-
tors was established on the north side of Shah-
jahanabad. This is where Delhi University was
also built early in the 20th century. New Delhi,

designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker
to be the capital of British India after 1911, is
distinguished by a dazzling complex of Mughal-
British-style government buildings, monuments,
gardens, and a central business district. In addi-
tion to serving the practical purposes of govern-
ment, it was also intended to symbolize Britain's
political and cultural mastery over India. Today,
it is where the official business of an independent
India is conducted. The residence of the former
British viceroy is now where India's president
conducts official receptions. The Indian parlia-
ment is located nearby in the same complex of
buildings.

Delhi has functioned as a center of Islamic
religion and culture through much of its history.
In addition to Nizam al-Din Awliya, other famous
Muslims who were born there or who spent sig-
nificant parts of their life there were the Chishti
saints Qutb al-Din Bakhtiyar Kaaki (d. 1235)
and Nasir al-Din Chiragh-i Dihli (d. 1356); the
great Indo-Persian poet Amir Khusraw (d. 1325);
the Mughal prince and student of Muslim and
Hindu philosophy and mysticism Dara SHIKOH (d.
1659); Dara's sister Jahanara, also a Sufi devotee
(d. 1681); the early modern revivalist Shah Wali
Allah (d. 1762); the religious reformer Sayyid
Ahmad Khan (d. 1898); and the renowned Urdu
poets Ghalib (d. 1869) and Altaf Husayn Mali (d.
1914). Delhi is also the location of the official
memorials for many of modern India's great non-
Muslim leaders, such as Mohandas K. Gandhi (d.
1947), Jawaharlal Nehru (d. 1964), and Indira
Gandhi (d. 1984).

See also architecture; Chishti Sufi Order;
cities; Hinduism and Islam.

Further reading: Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom,
The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800 (New
Haven. Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994); William
Dalrymple, City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi (London:
Penguin. 2003); R. E. Frykenbcrg, ed., Delhi through the
Ages: Essays in Urban History , Culture , and Society (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Delhi Sultanate 1 89

Delhi Sultanate (1211-1526)

The Delhi Sultanate is the collective name given
to the first rulers and dynasties to conquer and
establish direct Muslim rule in northern India.
They made Delhi, or the cluster of fortress cities
that succeeded each other and eventually became
Delhi, their capital. The rulers were Turks and
Afghans who formed an elite class that emu-
lated the cultural and political traditions of the
Persians. As Muslim sovereigns, however, they
derived their legitimacy from the Abbasid caliph
in Baghdad, who recognized Iltutmish (r. 1211—
36), the Turkish Mamluk commander in India, as
the SULTAN for that region in 1229. Muslim rulers
in India thereafter kept the title, which identified
its holders as powerful sovereigns who served as
defenders of the caliphate.

The five main phases of the Delhi Sultanate
were

Mamluk dynasty
Khalji dynasty
Tughluqi dynasty
Sayyid dynasty
Lodi dynasty

1211-1290

1290-1320

1320-1413

1413-1451

1451-1526

The Delhi Sultans conquered much of north-
ern India, including west Bengal and the Deccan
region of central India. With the passage of time,
despite persistent and spirited resistance from
Hindu Rajput kings, the ranks of the Muslim
ruling elite grew by intermarriages and alliances
with Hindus and the recruitment of Hindu con-
verts and Indian-born Muslims. Hindu states in
southern India paid tribute to the Delhi Sultans
when they were strong enough to exercise influ-
ence southward. The Delhi Sultanate suffered
a terrible reversal when the Mongol conqueror
Timur (Tamerlane, d. 1405) invaded India and
sacked Delhi in 1398-99. He did not stay long,
but he left behind a shattered sultanate. In 1526,
Timurs great grandson, Babur, returned to found
the Mughal dynasty and absorb the remnants of
the Delhi Sultanate.

It is not an accident that the Delhi Sultan-
ate first arose at the same time that the Mongols
were invading the Middle East from their bases
in Central Asia. Indeed, the building of Delhi’s
fortifications was done in large part to defend
against Mongol invaders from the northwest.
These defensive efforts were successful, so that
as Muslim cities in Persia were being razed to
the ground, Muslim refugees, including religious
scholars and mystics, were able to find a new
home in India.

The Delhi sultans built mosques and religious
schools and employed Hanafi judges and legal
scholars to serve in them. The 13th century was
also when the Chishti, Suhrawardi, and Kubrawi
Sufi orders established their centers in India. On
the other hand, the Delhi sultans, who were Sun-
nis, attempted to eradicate Ismaili Shia rulers and
communities that had earlier settled in northwest-
ern areas of India. Also, in their wars of expansion,
they plundered and desecrated Hindu temples,
as previous dynasties had done from bases in
Afghanistan. This appears to have been a method
of enhancing state revenues and undermining the
legitimacy of rival Hindu monarchs rather than
an outright assault against the Hindu religion.
Once the Delhi sultans consolidated their hold
on territories in India, they generally took a more
pragmatic approach toward their Hindu subjects,
who far outnumbered them. Many Hindu temples
and religious sites were left alone; Muslim rul-
ers endorsed protecting them and even allowed
demolished temples to be repaired and new ones
to be built. This policy continued to be observed
by the Mughals.

See also Chishti Sufi Order; Hanafi Legal
School; Hinduism and Islam; Ismaili Shiism.

Further reading: Richard Eaton, “Temple Desecration
and Indo-Muslim States." In Beyond Turk and Hindu:
Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia,
edited by David Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence, 246-
281 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000);
Andre Wink. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic

-4=5=5

1 90 democracy

World, Vol. 2, The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest ,
llth-13th Centuries (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997); Stanley
Wolpert, A New History of India, 5th ed. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997).

democracy

Democracy ; or "rule by the people," is a term that
has been used to describe a number of different
kinds of government. In the modern sense, it is
usually connected to the idea of government by
popularly elected officials who legislate and enforce
the laws in accordance with notions of individ-
ual liberties and civil rights. Historically, Islamic
political thought has legitimated many kinds of
governance, from the despotic to the benign.
The bountiful intellectual fruits of Islamic tradi-
tions — philosophical, theological, jurisprudential,
mystical — arc capable of justifying a wide array of
political models and forms of political behavior,
including models and forms of democratic prov-
enance. Professors, pundits, policy makers, and the
public in their wake have argued or assumed that
Islam and democracy arc inherently incompatible,
that cultural and political properties intrinsic to
Islamicate civilization preclude the birth of any-
thing remotely resembling "Islamic democracy."
Yet empirical studies conclude that such cultural
explanations do not account for the emergence and
success or failure of democracies.

Today, a clarion call from Muslims around the
world is heard on behalf of the virtues of demo-
cratic values and principles, methods, and pro-
cesses. The overwhelming preference of the "Arab
street" and the majority of non-Arabic Muslims is
for ballots ("paper stones"), not bullets, as militant,
jihadist Muslims prove the exception to the rule. In
short, Islamic democracy is not an oxymoron.

Minimalist or thin theories of democracy
focus on the electoral components of the demo-
cratic process, the desiderata being free and fair,
multiparty elections by secret and universal ballot.
An electoral democracy is a constitutional order in
which the chief executive (for example, president

or prime minister) and legislative offices are filled
through regular and competitive elections. By this
standard, for example, Turkey, Bangladesh, and
Indonesia are democratic, as are several states of
the former Soviet Union. Egypt and Malaysia are
quasi- or semi-democratic, Jordan and Morocco
arc democratic by fits and starts, and Algeria has
democratic pretensions, as do Kuwait and Bah-
rain. Interestingly, Iran also scores high on this
electoral scorecard. Even Saudi Arabia has been
unable to resist the reformist clamor for electoral
democracy: The kingdom's cabinet held its first
elections for municipal councils in early 2005. As
various forums of dialogue or "talking shops" arc
essential forms of democratic participation, the
fact that the Saudi leaders (in particular, former
crown prince and now king Abd Allah ibn Abd
al-Aziz [b. 1923]) are talking about reform with
"reform groups" portends changes on the des-
ert horizon, however distant. Post-Saddam Iraq
entered the early stages of forming a democratic
polity in 2004-05, where Shii political parties
have prevailed. Hamas, the Islamic radical resis-
tance organization, won in Palestinian elections
in 2006. In the previous year, after the withdrawal
of Syrian troops, the radical Shii organization Hiz-
bullah won scats in the Lebanese election, plus
two cabinet posts. The results of these elections
provoked an escalation of armed conflict between
Israeli forces and Hamas in Palestine and Hizbul-
lah in Lebanon.

Other problems persist. Executive offices are
often uncontestcd, and opposition parties face
unwarranted if not unreasonable government
restrictions (and not a few parties are "banned"
for this or that reason), with often limited access
to media. In addition to voting Iraud, authoritar-
ian elites do not hesitate to resort to insidious
forms of “electoral engineering" to achieve favor-
able electoral outcomes. In this case, the maxim
“something is better than nothing" holds. Per-
chance international election monitoring can play
a more effective part in preventing or discouraging
attempts at electoral manipulation.

Deoband 1 91

As a consequence of electoral participation,
some of the more militant Salafi Islamists have
formed alliances and coalitions with both Islamic
and “secularist" parties and movements, often
renouncing the methods of violence in ending
the campaign for an “Islamic revolution." Deny-
ing Islamists participation in electoral politics can
have deleterious results, as in Algeria, when the
Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) resorted to rebel-
lion and violence. At other times, the denial of
participation simply compels Islamists to engage
in the politics of civil society, as with the Mus-
lim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 1980s and
1990s. Islamist parties demonstrating some level
of commitment to democratic principles and pro-
cedures are found, for example, in Tunisia, Alge-
ria, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia,
and Indonesia, as well in most of the republics of
the former Soviet Union.

The growth and consolidation of democracy
in Muslim-majority countries face enormous
obstacles: authoritarian political traditions and
communalist orientations (including recalcitrant
ulama with medievalist responses to the condi-
tions of modernity); histories of colonialist rule
and imperialist interference; the need to imple-
ment economic reforms by way of integration
into the global economy; the effects of anticolo-
nial nationalist struggles that lacked democratic
priorities; and economically bloated and ineffi-
cient states with excessive military expenditures,
to list the more egregious difficulties. Fortunately,
the level of economic development provides little
information about the chances of transition to
democracy, although per capita income does
correlate with the sustainability of democratic
regimes. Political economists and democratic
theorists alike well know that rentier states, such
as the Persian Gulf oil-producing countries, pose
peculiar problems for democratic development.
Of course, more substantive participatory and
deliberative democratic theories elaborate a vari-
ety of different social and institutional conditions
that serve as prerequisites of, or that are at least

conducive to, full-fledged democratic consolida-
tion and flourishing. When or if the various forms
of Islamic democracy do arise, the corresponding
criteria of assessment will be more stringent than
those that take into account only electoral forms
of democracy.

See also constitutionalism; government,
Islamic; Islamism; politics and Islam.

Patrick S. O'Donnell

Further reading: Khalcd Abou El Fadl, Joshua Cohen,
and Deborah Chasman, cds., Islam and the Challenge
of Democracy: A Boston Review Book (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 2004); Robert A. Dahl, Ian
Shapiro, and Jose Antonio Chiebub, eds.. The Democ-
racy Sourcebook (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003);
John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, eds., Islam and
Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996);
Noah Feldman, After Jihad: America and the Struggle for
Islamic Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
2003).

Deoband

Located in Saharanpur District in Uttar Pradesh,
India, Deoband town contains mosques and build-
ings from the 15th and 16th centuries and is
mentioned in the Ayn-i Akbari of Abu'l Fazl (d.
1602). It is famous for the Dar al-Ulum (House
of Sciences) school, which was founded in 1867
by a group of highly learned ulama. Principal
among them was Mohammad Qasim Nanautawi
(1832-77), who was trained by teachers in the
lineage of Shah Wali Allah (1703-62), the great
Sufi reformer and intellectual in Delhi. The goal
of the institution was to create a new Indian body
of ulama that could provide spiritual and legal
guidance to Indian Muslims, rather than con-
tinuing to depend on scholars from the Arabian
Peninsula or having to travel to the Middle East
for instruction. Another paramount objective in
the founding of the school was to counteract the
growing influence of Christian missionaries.

192 dervish

The Deoband curriculum follows the Hanafi
Legal School and provides advanced training in
religious law. The original Deoband center has
spawned more than 8,000 schools and institutes
for all levels of instruction. Deoband is one of
several major centers of Islamic learning in India,
including the Nadwat ul-Ulama and Aligarh Mus-
lim University. The curriculum at Deoband incor-
porates three prevalent schools of Islamic learning
in India: those of Delhi, Lucknow, and Khayrabad.
The Delhi school had focused on tafsir (Quran
commentary) and hadith, Lucknow emphasized
FIQH (jurisprudence), and Khayrabad gave pre-
cedence to theology and philosophy. Deoband's
ideological approach combined these and gave
it its signature twist by focusing on Shah Wali
Allah and his idiosyncratic hadith scholarship.
Wali Allah regarded hadith as often unreliable.
Indeed, in his view all revelations other than the
Quran could at best be regarded as hadith qudsi ,
or “holy speech." Wali Allah regarded Malik ibn
Anass Muwatta (eighth century) as the pinnacle of
hadith collections, as it was the earliest and clos-
est in time to the Prophet. He was a proponent of
ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) and a critic
of tacflid (blind adherence to legal scholars), view-
ing imitation of any model other than Muhammad
as suspect.

The influence of Deoband has been far reach-
ing, and its curriculum is standard throughout
Muslim South Asia. The early years of study in
the basic curriculum focus on Arabic language,
the biography of Muhammad, recitation of the
Quran, and jurisprudence. The eighth, and final
year focuses solely on hadith. Master's degrees
arc offered in law, Quranic interpretation (tafsir),
theology, and adab literature. Legal opinions, or
fatwas, are obtainable upon solicitation from the
center at Deoband. Deobandi schools known as
madrasas are also centers for daawa (proselytiza-
tion). Deoband publishes books by its ulama past
and present and issues a newspaper, al-Dai (the
call). Dar al-Ulum Deoband has counted among
its vice chancellors and principals many luminar-

ies of South Asian ulama such as Shaykh al-IIind
Maulana Mahmood Hassan (1851-1920), Maulana
Muhammad Anwar Shah Kashmiri (1875-1933),
and Maulana Syed Hussain Ahmed Madani (1879-
1957). Although there is no political party directly
linked to Deoband, the school has had a profound
impact on Muslim politics, having trained many of
the key members of political groups such as Jami-
yyat al-Ulama-i Hind, Jamiyatul Ulama-i Pakistan,
and Jamiyyat al-Ulama-i Islam.

Through the use of its curriculum and the pro-
liferation of its graduates, Deoband is often linked
to the spread of extremist ideologies most vividly
exemplified by the Taliban. To some degree, this
influence is real. In other cases, it is merely nomi-
nal, as the authority inherent in the name of Deo-
band is invoked to legitimate all kinds of Islamic
conservatism. Although Deoband remains one of
the most important institutes of Islamic learn-
ing, in India it may be soon be eclipsed by the
increasing influence of Nadwat ul-Ulama, where
enrollments have outstripped Deoband's since the
mid-1990s.

See also education.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival
in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1987); Muhammad Qasim
Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002).

dervish (Persian: darvish , also spelled
darwish , darwesh)

A dervish is an individual who has chosen the Sufi
path. The origin of this Persian word is unclear,
but it is generally taken to refer to someone who
is poor or a beggar. In Sufism, the term, like the
Arabic term faqir (poor), refers to someone who
is humble and who has renounced the world in
order to follow the Sufi path. While this often
involves actual poverty and a renunciation of

dhikr 1 93

material possessions, which may necessitate beg-
ging for subsistence, a more spiritual sense of
poverty suggests the control of desires, so that
the dervish can focus on God. Many Suli guides,
in fact, warn dervishes against extreme poverty,
since poverty itself must be forgotten, as it is only
a stage on the path and can distract one from
focusing on God.

In early Islamic history, piety was often expressed
through individual ASCETICISM. Inevitably, some
ascetics gained fame, followers were attracted to
their example, and in this way schools developed.
By the 12th century, Sufi orders such as the Qadiris
had begun to take definite shape around the person
or the tomb of a famous master, with formal rules
and special buildings designed to accommodate
and feed resident dervishes and provide space for
rituals. Each order developed its own forms of
worship, including chanting the names of God or
special formulas (dhikr); the singing of mystical
poetry to music, often accompanied by dancing;
and sometimes ecstatic practices, which might
include, as with the Rifai Sufi Order, dervishes eat-
ing hot coals or piercing their bodies with spikes.
Dervish thus came to refer to a member of such an
order, and in some orders, such as the Mevlevis
and Bektashis, it refers to a particular rank in the
hierarchy of the order. Whirling dervishes is a name
used by Westerners for members of the Mevlevi
Sufi Order, who perform circular dances as part of
their musical ceremonies. Some orders, such as the
Qalandaris, were more loosely organized, and their
disciples traveled constantly from place to place,
being known as wandering dervishes.

See also Bektashi Sufi Order; saint.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Ahmet T. Karamustafa. Gods Unruly
Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle
Period 1200-1550 (Salt Lake City: Utah University
Press, 1994); Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimen-
sions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1975); Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in
Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

Devil See Satan.

dhikr (zikr, zikir)

Dhikr is Arabic for recollection, or remembrance.
The Quran calls upon humans to recollect God
and not to forget him: “O you who believe!
Remember God often" (Q 33:41); “O people!
Remember the blessing God has given you" (Q
35:2); and ‘ Remember your lord when you forget.
Remembrance causes people to discover the real
reason they were created to begin with — to serve
God. Indeed, people will be held accountable on
the Judgment Day if they forget God (Q 18:24).”
The Quran also calls upon believers to remember
God's prophets, the bearers of previous revela-
tions. The Quran itself is called a “remembrance”
( dhikra), and its verses arc signs (ayat) revealed
so that people recall God and his sovereignty over
heaven and earth. Muslims believe that the obli-
gation of remembrance rests upon a primordial
covenant that God established with Adams prog-
eny (all humans), wherein they recognized him as
their lord (Q 7:172).

Occasions for remembering God arise through-
out a Muslims life — a birth and death, before eat-
ing a meal, beginning a journey, on feast days, and
in the performance of the Five Pillars of Islamic
worship. During the month of Muharram and at
other times of the year, the Shiis remember their
holy imams, who were martyred for their belief
in God. The idea of remembrance has assumed an
especially important place in Sufism, in which dhikr
refers both to a word or phrase pronounced repeat-
edly during their ritual practices and to the ritual
practices themselves. Among the sacred words and
phrases used most commonly by Sufis in this regard
are Allah, or one of Gods other divine names; la
ilaha ilia Allah “there is not god but God"; Allahu
akbar “God is greater”; al-hamdu lillah “Praise
God"; and simply hu “He." For some Sufi orders, a
single litany may be repeated 70,000 times.

The introduction of dhikr performances into
the life of the Sufi orders began around the 11th

^ 194 dhimmi

“Remember God” says the sign posted on a stand
with clay jugs containing water for thirsty passersby in
downtown Cairo. (Juan £ Campo)

century. Each Sufi order developed its own dis-
tinctive code of dhikr practices, which it ascribed
to its founding Sufi masters. By regulating the
practices, they not only fostered the embodiment
of the spiritual teachings of the order, but also dis-
ciplined the behavior of its members and actual-
ized the AUTHORITY of the orders leadership. Dhikr
activities are conducive to ecstatic outbursts and
unpredictable behavior, so the code helps provide
a degree of decorum.

Dhikr rituals have been performed in solitude
and in group gatherings, silently or audibly (by
heart or by tongue). Most frequently, they occur
at Sufi hospices (the khanqah, tekke, or rabita)
and at saint shrines. Performance of the litanies
is accompanied by breath control techniques

and rhythmic movements of the body, which can
induce a trancelike stale of consciousness (hal)
or ecstatic experience ( wajd ). Participants have
been said to visualize colored lights, or flashes,
which they believe emanate from the realm of the
unseen. The atmosphere of dhikr performances
may be enhanced by music, drums, and dancing,
as exemplified by the sema of the Mevlevi Sufi
Order. On the other hand, Naqshbandi Sufis are
known to refrain from such outward performances
and promote silent dhikr instead. In the past, con-
servative Muslim authorities may have criticized
such activities, but today religious conservatives,
Islamists, and secular Muslims who hold rational-
scientific worldviews vehemently oppose them.
Nonetheless, in the world of the Sufis and their
many supporters, the dhikr is seen as a way to gain
spiritual enlightenment and achieve union (itti-
sal ) or annihilation (fana) in God. In this regard,
remembering God entails forgetting oneself and
the world, even if only for the moment.

See cdso Adam and Eve; aya; baqa and fana;
names of God; Naqshbandi Sufi Order; Shiism;
tar/qa.

Further reading: Michael Gilsenan, Saint and Sufi in
Modern Egypt: An Essay in the Sociology of Religion
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973). 156-187; J.
Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (1971.
Reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988),
194-217; Pnina Werbner, “Stamping the Earth with the
Name of Allah: Zikr and the Sacralizing of Space among
British Muslims." In Making Muslim Space in North
America and Europe, edited by Barbara Metcalf. 167-185
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

dhimmi (from the Arabic ahl al-dhimma,
people of the treaty)

Dhimmis arc the non-Muslims who live within
Islamdom and have a regulated and protected
status. The term as such does not appear in the
Quran but is found in hadith related to Muham-
mad's treatment of Jews and Christians within

dhimmi 1 95

the territories controlled by the nascent Islamic
state. The relevant quranic verse in that regard
commands the Muslims to ‘Tight those who have
previously received revelation and do not believe
in God or in the Last Day, who do not forbid that
which God and his Prophet have forbidden, and
who do not believe in the true religion, until they
agree to pay the jizya in humility.*' (Q 9:29) Thus,
dhimmi status is not accorded to all members of
religions recognized as having had previous divine
revelation. Rather, it is the status of members of
those religions living within an Islamic polity (the
dar al-Islam) who have submitted to the politi-
cal dominance of the Islamic state. Much of the
modern demagoguery around this topic is there-
fore entirely irrelevant, insofar as Muslims, who
constitute small minorities in the West, could not
(and generally would not) attempt to make others
submit to their religiopolitical authority.

Historically, dhimmi status has been applied
quite broadly to various non-Muslims living in
lands controlled by Muslims. Thus, for instance,
Zoroastrians, who did not have a “previously
received revelation" or scripture, were accorded
this protected status, as were Hindus and many
others. Being treated as a dhimmi in such circum-
stances carried certain benefits as well as poten-
tial liabilities. The benefits were clear: Dhimmis
were allowed to practice their religions freely and
without constraint, except in cases in which a
public practice might openly conflict with Mus-
lims' sensibilities or in which they insulted Islam.
Moreover, dhimmis were granted most of the
protections due to Muslims, could not be arbi-
trarily harmed, and could not be forced to convert
or emigrate from Muslim-ruled territories. The
liabilities were potentially numerous, but gener-
ally only one was of any import: paying the jizya,
or poll tax — a tax on individual members of the
community in question. Jizya was regularly col-
lected, and it appears to have been onerous for
impoverished dhimmis , as evidenced especially in
Goitein's work on Jews in medieval Cairo. In some
cases, the wealthy dhimmis might pay the tax for

others of the community who were indigent, but
this was not universal by any means. Other than
the tax, there were numerous regulations, often
cast as the so-called Pact of Umar, referring to the
second caliph, but most likely from the 11th cen-
tury or so, at least in its present form. Nonethe-
less, from the eighth century, certainly, one could
find occasions when rulers imposed restrictions
on the dhimmis , including forcing them to wear
certain prescribed clothing different from that of
Muslims (perhaps originally to forestall espio-
nage), forbidding their building of new places of
worship or even repairing existing ones, requiring
that all high officials be Muslims (they very often
were not), and so on.

However, historical evidence makes abun-
dantly clear that the dhimmi rules were never sys-
tematically applied and were most often applied
temporarily by rulers who lacked legitimacy and
tried to gain it by dressing themselves in the garb
of piety. While restrictions governing non-Mus-
lims were generally not applied, others, such as
those prohibiting non-Muslim men from mar-
rying Muslim women (but not the inverse), as
well as rules against apostasy from Islam (but not
the inverse), were broadly applied. While these
restrictions do not amount to persecution, they
likely made conversion to Islam more attractive.
On the other hand, compared to the virulent anti-
Judaism that arose in Europe in medieval times,
the situation of dhimmis was quite enviable. The
picture, in other words, was complex.

In the modern period, this term has occasion-
ally been resuscitated, but it is generally obsolete.
Afghanistan's Taliban wanted to impose the
legally prescribed dhimmi dress codes on non-
Muslims and did so to some extent. But this has
not been the case elsewhere, and most Muslims
worldwide appear to have regarded this action
incredulously. As ideas about nationalism and
citizenship take precedence over those of reli-
giously determined identity, many Islamic groups
such as the Muslim Brotherhood have recognized
the equality of Muslims and non-Muslims in a

'Css^s

1 96 Dhu al-Qarnayn

putative Islamic state, thereby emptying dhimmi
status of any real meaning.

See also Christianity and Islam; dar al-Islam

AND DAR AL-HARB; EMIGRANTS; HINDUISM AND ISLAM;

Judaism and Islam.

Further reading: Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law
and Muslim Minorities: The Juristic Discourse on
Muslim Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the Elev-
enth/Seventeenth Centuries," Islamic Law and Society
1 (1994): 141-187; Patricia Crone, Gods Rule (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 358—392; S.
D. Goilein, A Mediterranean Society, 6 vols. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1967-1993).

Dhu al-Qarnayn See Alexander the Great.

dialogue

Interreligious (or interfaith) dialogue is a form of
positive interaction between known followers of
different religious traditions or different denomi-
nations and sects within a single religious tradition.
It is done on different levels, from the individual
and local to the institutional and global. Dialogue
topics include theology, worship, ethics, inter-
faith relations, and worldly issues. The goals of
dialogue can vary, but they often involve efforts
to achieve mutual understanding and tolerance,
identify shared values, establish interfaith bonds,
overcome prejudice and religious fanaticism, and,
perhaps most importantly, avert conflict or foster
healing where conflict has occurred. Dialogue
may also result in a reexamination of ones own
religious convictions. One thing dialogue does
not intend to do is convert people from one reli-
gion or one denomination to another, nor does
it seek to create a new religion. Muslim leaders
and organizations engage in dialogue with non-
Muslims, including Christians, Jews, Hindus, and
Buddhists. There have also been some efforts to
promote mutual understanding among Sunni and
Shii Muslims.

Muslims have been in close contact with
people belonging to other religions for all
of their history, beginning with Muhammad's
encounters with polytheists and Jews in Mecca
and Medina in the seventh century. There is
substantial evidence for exchanges and discus-
sions between Muslims, Christians, and Jews
in the first centuries of Islamic history in Syria,
Iraq and Egypt. These exchanges have left their
imprint on Islamic religious tradition, philoso-
phy, the sciences, and monumental architecture.
They also enriched religious and cultural life in
medieval Andalusia. Figures such as al-Biruni
( d. 1048), Akbar (d. 1605), and Dara Shikoh (d.
1659) arc remembered for their learned engage-
ment with Hindu pundits and representatives
of other religious communities in India. On the
other hand, conservative religious authorities,
Muslims and non-Muslims, wrote polemical
literature refuting the religious claims of other
religions. Muslim rulers employed non-Muslims
in the courts as ministers and physicians, which
is how the great Jewish philosopher Maimonidcs
(d. 1204) made his living in Egypt. Non-Mus-
lims were legally protected subjects (dhimmi s)
under the sharia, but they held subordinate
status and periodically fell victim to Muslim
tyrannical rulers.

Continuing interfaith dialogue activities by
organized religious associations, whereby all
participants had relatively equal footing, did
not really begin to develop until the early 20th
century, with the onset of a new ecumenical
spirit in the West. The 1893 Parliament of World
Religions in Chicago signaled new, more tolerant
attitudes among some Christian churches toward
non-Christians. The parliament included at least
two people who represented the “Mohammedan"
faith (Islam). Major Christian churches began to
consider interreligious communication to be a
more valued goal than conversion. They also had
the benefit of more accurate knowledge about
Islamic beliefs and history, thanks to the efforts
of European and American scholars, the Oricn-

dialogue 1 97

talists. Muslims, for their part, were reluctant to
participate in interreligious dialogues for sev-
eral reasons. Language posed a barrier initially,
because most Muslim religious authorities were
not conversant in the European languages. Many
thought dialogue might be a disguised mission-
ary effort by European Christian churches, and
they were wary of connections between their
conversation partners and the European colo-
nial powers that had occupied their countries.
However, the creation of new nation-states in the
20th century, growing knowledge of European
languages and cultures, and increased global
travel, immigration, and communication helped
overcome these barriers. Since the 1960s, cata-
strophic violence in the Middle East and attacks
by Muslim radicals in Europe and the United
States, especially the September 11th assaults in
2001, have also provided incentives for Muslims
to engage more actively in dialogue with non-
Muslims.

The World Council of Churches and the
Roman Catholic Church began to actively embrace
intcrrcligious dialogue in the 1950s and 1960s.
They organized international and regional con-
ferences and published books and papers that
promoted dialogue among Christians, Jews, and
Muslims. Joined by countless other organiza-
tions on local and global levels, they continue
to promote intcrrcligious dialogue today. Their
efforts have prompted Islamic organizations such
as the Muslim World League and the World
Muslim Congress to participate in and sponsor
similar activities, beginning in the 1980s and
1990s. Dialogue among Jews, Christians, and
Muslims has been further enriched by a growing
recognition that more than being monotheistic
religions, they are Abrahamic, which emphasizes
a common religiocultural heritage as “children
of Abraham," the ancestral biblical figure who is
also highly esteemed by Muslims. Muslim-Jewish
dialogue, however, has been negatively affected by
the ongoing violence in Isracl-Palestine, but this
conflict has made the need for such dialogue even

more urgent. As a consequence, leading Muslim
and Jewish organizations in the United States
are making concerted efforts to sponsor dialogue
activities, often with the encouragement and sup-
port of Christian groups.

Interreligious dialogue is also occurring on
college and university campuses in the United
States and Europe, helping to build friendships,
mutual understanding, and acceptance among
Muslims, Jews, Christians, and secularists. Pro-
gressive Muslim scholars raised and educated
in Europe and the United States such as Tariq
Ramadan (b. 1962) and Khaled Abou el Fadl
(b. 1963) represent a significant new force that
is contributing to greater understanding between
Muslims and non-Muslims. On a global scale,
another noteworthy development is the forma-
tion of groups promoting dialogue, tolerance, and
understanding that have been inspired by Sufi
ideals. These include the Naqshbandi-Haqqani
Sufi Order and followers of the modern Turk-
ish thinker Fethullah Gulen (b. 1941). These
groups have strong followings among young
people, many of whom are college educated and
cosmopolitan in outlook.

Sec also Buddhism and Islam; Christianity and
Islam; Council on American-Islamic Relations;
dhimmi; al-Haqqani, Muhammad Nazim; Hinduism
and Islam; Judaism and Islam; Mohammedanism;
Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Further reading: M. Darol Bryant and S. A. Ali, eds.,
Muslim -Christian Dialogue: Promise and Problems (St.
Paul. Minn.: Paragon House, 1998); M. Fethullah
Gulen, Toward a Global Civilization of Love and Toler-
ance (Somerset, N.J.: The Light, Inc., 2004); Yvonne Y.
Haddad and Wadi Z. Haddad, eds., Muslim-Christian
Encounters (Gainesville: University Press of Florida,

1995) ; Hans Rung, Islam: Past , Present and Future
(Oxford: Oneworld, 2007); Tariq Ramadan, Western
Muslims and the Future of Islam (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2004); Gerard Sloyan, ed., Religions
of the Booh (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America,

1996) .

198 dietary laws

dietary laws

Many religions and cultures define themselves not
only by what they believe, but also by what they
eat and how they prepare it. Food brings people
together and separates them from others, it links
them to the natural and sacred worlds, it fills their
memories and imaginations, and it helps to mark
their places in time and space. The rules that
influence peoples' food practices can be a matter
of social customs that are passed from generation
to generation, or they can be construed as having
issued Irom sacred beings through a revelation
or a mythical story that may involve themes of
sacrifice and DEATH. Sometimes, dietary laws and
customs can be both a matter of social custom
and religion. This is the case for Islamic dietary
laws, which are less rigorous than dietary laws in
Orthodox Judaism.

In Islamic dietary laws, foods arc classified
into groups — those that are lawful (halal) and
forbidden (haram), and those that arc pure (tahir,
tayyib) and impure (reijis, najis). This division
into lawful-pure and forbidden-impure groups
of food is based on the Quran and hadith, the
Islamic sources of revelation. Jurists in the differ-
ent schools of Islamic law have elaborated upon
it further. The most general statement in the
Quran about food is one that was intended for all
“children of Adam”: “Eat and drink, but do not be
wasteful, for God does not like wasteful people”
(Q 7:31). The Quran instructs people to eat only
lawful and good things from the Earth and not
to “follow in Satan's footsteps” (Q 2:168). Both
of these verses indicate that eating raises ethical
issues. The Quran also identifies specific foods
that God has provided for people to eat: dates,
grapes, olives, pomegranates, grains, and the
flesh of domestic cattle, sheep, goats, and camels
(Q 6:99, 141-145; 80:25-32). For Muslims, any
meat that is consumed must come from an animal
that has been slaughtered or sacrificed in accor-
dance with specific rules: The name of God (the
basmala) must be invoked (Q 6:118, 121), and a
deep incision with a sharp knife must be made

across the throat. Most seafood can be eaten (Q
5:96; 16:14), as well as hunted animals as long as
the name of God has been pronounced when the
hunting weapon is discharged (Q 5:4). The Quran
permits Muslims to share the lawful and pure food
of Jews, Christians, and other People oe the Book
(Q 5:5), but jurists rule that the food of known
heretics, apostates, idol worshippers, and atheists
is forbidden. If there is any doubt about the source
of the food, a Muslim is usually allowed to eat it
as long as the name of God has been pronounced
over it before being eaten.

The Quran expressly forbids believing Mus-
lims from eating carrion (meat from unsacrificed
dead things), spill blood, pork, and food that
has been offered to idols instead of God (Q 5:3;
6:145). The hadith expands this list to include
other forbidden food, especially the flesh of preda-
tors (animals with fangs or talons). As for any
meat from an animal that has not been correctly
slaughtered, Muslim jurists maintain that it must
be considered as carrion, making it inedible. This
includes animals that have been strangled, beaten
to death, killed by a fall, or gored to death (Q 5:3).
Wine (fell amr) is also prohibited (Q 5:90-91), and
jurists have applied this rule to other intoxicating
substances. All such forbidden foods and bever-

Turkish family offers hospitality to visitors from America
(Juan E. Campo)

divorce 199

ages are said to be impure and can prevent Mus-
lims from fulfilling their religious duties unless
avoided or removed. Only in cases of dire neces-
sity are exceptions made to these prohibitions (Q
2:172-173).

Specific dietary rules may also apply to wor-
ship and other activities in Muslim life, prayer,
fasting during Ramadan, almsgiving, and the hajj
all involve restrictions and procedures concern-
ing food that participants are required to observe.
Offering food is one of the most important acts of
charity, but the act is invalid if the food offered is
forbidden. There are also rules of etiquette rec-
ommended for occasions involving feasting and
hospitality as well as ordinary meals (for example,
pronouncing the bastnala, taking food and drink
with the right hand, and not reclining while eat-
ing). Sufi brotherhoods have developed rules for
eating and fasting that apply exclusively to their
members.

In the modern age of large-scale movements
of people around the world, science, and fast-food
franchises, Muslim dietary rules have taken on new
significance. Many educated Muslims, for example,
attempt to explain their ancient dietary laws to non-
Muslims in terms of modern concepts of health and
science. Others use them to maintain their distinc-
tive identities in foreign lands or as their own Mus-
lim cultures undergo far-reaching changes. Studies
of Muslim immigrants in Europe and the United
States have shown that adherence to dietary laws
concerning pork, alcohol, and animal slaughter are
among the most common aspects of their religious
tradition they arc likely to observe. Practicing Afri-
can-American Muslims arc also careful to observe
Muslim dietary laws. In Muslim countries, many
of which arc quite secular, governments issue laws
that seek to win compliance for dietary rules and
control the availability of alcohol. Saudi Arabia,
Libya, Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan have officially
banned the sale and public consumption of alco-
hol, although there is often a black market trade in
such banned beverages.

See also animals; apostasy; food and drink.

Further reading: Valerie J. Hoffman, “Eating and Fast-
ing for God in Sufi Tradition." Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 63 (Fall 1995): 465-484; Yusuf al-
Qaradawi, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam (Al-halal
wal-haram fi al-Islam). Translated by Kamal El-Helbawi,
M. Moinuddin Siddiqui, and Syed Shukry (Indianapolis:
American Trust Publications, 1960), 39-78.

disbelief See KAFIR.

divorce

Divorce is a formal separation between a husband
and wife by custom or by law. In Islam, it falls
within the sphere of jurisprudence (f/QH), which
is concerned with family law and also includes the
laws of marriage and inheritance. Divorce ( talacf )
is therefore legally recognized in the Islamic legal
tradition, where it is based on detailed rulings
given in the Quran (Q 2:226-232, 236-237, 241;
65:1-7) and HADITH and further elaborated in the
schools ( madhahib ) of religious law. Moreover,
Islamic divorce law is not monolithic — it embod-
ies differences of opinion among the legal schools
and reflects local customs found within the worlds
various Muslim communities. Muslim family law
did not begin to be formally codified until the
20th century, but even with this codification there
are still significant differences among the divorce
laws instituted by countries with Muslim majority
populations.

Although divorce is permitted in Islam, Mus-
lims have noted that the Quran and hadith con-
tain statements that recommend against it. The
Quran urges that the husband and wife seek arbi-
tration in order to preserve their relationship (Q
4:35). According to a hadith cited in the collection
of Abu Daud (d. 889), Muhammad said, ‘’None
of the things permitted by God is more hated by
him than divorce." As a permitted practice, how-
ever, Islamic law gave men the exclusive right to
initiate divorce, which could be accomplished by
simply stating T divorce you" three times. The

200 dog

woman need not even be present when he pro-
nounced divorce, and no formal judicial process
was required. Medieval Islamic divorce law put
women at a significant disadvantage, but it was
partly mitigated by 1) the recommendation that
the three proclamations of divorce be performed
on three separate occasions, 2) the requirement
that the husband pay the woman all or part of her
dowry, and 3) the requirement that the husband
provide her with lodging and support for a wait-
ing period of up to three menstrual cycles (about
three months). The husband could revoke the
divorce during this period as long as he had not
pronounced the divorce declaration a third time.
If the woman was pregnant, he was obliged to
support her for the duration of her pregnancy, and
both mother and child had to be maintained for
up to two years while the child was being nursed.
The divorce was irrevocable once the three-month
waiting period had ended and the pronouncement
had been made a third time. A woman could not
initiate a divorce, but in special circumstances she
had the right to petition a judge to annul the mar-
riage. The Maliki Legal School of Sunni Islam is
considered to have been the most liberal in this
respect, for it allowed a woman to request an end
to the marriage because of the husbands cruelty,
inability to support her, desertion, or contracting
an illness that could be harmful to her. apostasy
could also be grounds for divorce. Shii law con-
cerning divorce was similar to that of the Sunnis.
In actual practice, a divorcee was often at the
mercy of her former husband's willingness to ful-
fill his legal obligations and a judges willingness
to intervene if he did not.

During the 20th century, Muslim reformers
sought to change traditional divorce law to give
women a more equitable footing in initiating
divorce and to protect them from its arbitrary use
by their husbands and ad hoc judicial rulings.
New legislation concerning divorce was adopted
by many newly created countries to make this
possible. Among Muslim-majority countries in the
forefront of reform were Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey,

Algeria, Jordan, and Libya. In some instances, tra-
ditional Islamic law has collided with secular law,
as occurred in the controversial 1985 case of Shah
Bano Begum, an impoverished divorcee in India.
The Indian Supreme Court ruled on the basis of
that country's civil law code that Shah Bano was
entitled to receive alimony after her husband of
43 years divorced her to take a second wife. The
decision sparked widespread demonstrations by
India's Muslim minority, who saw it as an affront
to their religion by Hindus. The result was the
passage of the 1986 Muslim Women Act, which
upheld the traditional Islamic law that limited the
obligation of the husband to pay for the divorcee's
maintenance for only the duration of the three-
month waiting period. In Western countries, most
Muslims adhere to local civil codes governing
marriage and divorce.

See also children; Hinduism and Islam; renewal
AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Further reading: Peter Awn, “Indian Islam: The Shah
Bano Affair." In Fundamentalism and Gender, edited
by John Stratton Hawley, 63-78 (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994); John L. Esposito and Natana
Dclong-Bas, Women in Muslim Family Law. 2d cd. (Syra-
cuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2001); Ziba Mir-
Hosscini, Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family
Law: Iran and Morocco Compared (London: LB. Taurus,
1993).

dog

The dog is a descendant of the wolf and was one
of the first domesticated animals. Archaeological
evidence indicates its domestication lirst occurred
in the Middle East around 10,000 B.c.E. Despite
the ancient and close association between humans
and dogs. Middle Eastern cultures have formed
mixed attitudes toward them. A common insult
used by people in the region, no matter whether
they are Muslim, Jew, or Christian, is to call
someone a dog or the offspring of one. Yet these
same cultures have also accepted dogs as living

Dome of the Rock 201

creatures worthy of humane treatment and valued
for their usefulness in guarding property, hunting,
and herding sheep.

The ambivalent feelings Middle Eastern peo-
ples have held for dogs is especially evident
in Islamic contexts. The Quran, for example,
employs the dog as a simile for disbelievers (Q
7:176). The HADITH advise Muslims not to stretch
out their arms like dogs when they prostrate
themselves in prayer. Most jurists maintain that
dogs and pigs alike arc inherently impure ( najis )
animals, meaning that contact with them or their
secretions invalidates a persons prayer. They can
also profane a mosque or prayer place by their
presence. In cither case, the defilement can be
corrected by physically removing the animal and
symbolically washing the places they touched
with earth and clean water. Several reasons have
been given for regarding dogs as a source of such
impurity. Muslim authorities invoke hadith that
say angels do not enter houses in which there arc
dogs. Al-Jahiz (d. ca. 868), a famous Iraqi literary
figure, proposed that dogs are reviled because they
have a mixed nature — neither wild nor domestic,
neither human nor demonic, but combinations
of these qualities. In the philosophical story of
the debate between humans and animals related
by the Brethren of Purity, dogs as well as cats
are condemned by other animals for associating
too closely with humans and assuming human
qualities.

Nonetheless, Islamic literature also expresses
favorable attitudes toward dogs. Muhammad is
reported in the hadith to have said that when a
man or woman gives water to a thirsty dog, that
person would be rewarded by God and enter para-
dise. He once ordered the killing of black dogs in
Medina but relented, saying, “The black dog was
one of the communities (created by God). Thus
it was not created but for some good purpose,
so the obliteration of its kind must create some
deficiency in nature." The sharia permits the use
of dogs in hunting wild game (see Q 5:4) as well
as for herding flocks and protecting property.

but not keeping them as pets. The most famous
Middle Eastern canine breed is the Saluki, an
Arabian hound known for its prowess in hunt-
ing down gazelles and rabbits. Moreover, not all
jurists agreed that dogs were impure animals,
and al-Jahiz recounted their virtues as well as
their deficiencies. Muslim commentaries on the
Quran mention a dog named Qitmir that kept
company with the Companions of the Cave (see Q
18:9-26), a group of youths who proclaimed their
belief in God but had to retreat to a cave where
God let them sleep for centuries in order to escape
persecution from disbelievers. The commentators
regarded Qitmir as a protective and loyal canine
who would be allowed to enter paradise. Rumi
(d. 1273), the Persian poet and mystic, even
acknowledged that Qitmir and other dogs had
an inner awareness of God's love for his creation.
Despite such support for the virtues of dogs, cats
tend to be held in higher esteem in Islamic tradi-
tion than dogs.

See also CAT; DIETARY laws.

Further reading: Lenn Evan Goodman, ed. and trans.,
The Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of
the Jinn: A Tenth-Century Ecological Fable of the Pure
Brethren of Basra (Boston: Twaync Publishers, 1978);
Ibn Marzuban, The Book of the Superiority of Dogs over
Many of Those Who Wear Clothes. Translated and edited
by G. R. Smith and M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Warminster,
U.K.: Aris & Phillips, 1978); Yusuf al-Qaradawi, The
Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam (Indianapolis: Ameri-
can Trust Publications, n.d.); Ahmad b. Muhammad
al-Thalabi, Arm's al-majalis fi qi$a$ al-anbiya , or, Lives of
the Prophets. Translated by William M. Brinncr (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 2002).

Dome of the Rock

The Dome of the Rock is the most prominent
architectural feature in the urban landscape of
Jerusalem and is one of the most exquisite
works of Islamic art and architecture in the
world. The building is located in the middle of

202 dreams

a spacious plaza atop a hill on the eastern edge
of the city where the ancient Israelite temple of
Solomon used to stand. This sacred precinct is
known today as the Temple Mount (Hebrew: Har
ha-Bayit) and as the Noble Sanctuary (Arabic:
al-Haram al-Sharif). The physical structure of the
building itself shelters a legendary rock that in
Jewish tradition is believed to be where Abrahams
sacrifice occurred and where Muslims believe
Muhammad stood before ascending to heaven.
The building consists of a large golden dome that
crowns an eight-sided building and is supported
by a cylinder resting on a complex of piers,
arches, and columns. Beautiful Arabic inscrip-
tions and mosaics with vegetal motifs, crowns,
and jewel designs decorate the monument inside
and out.

The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Mar-
wan (r. 685-705) built the Dome of the Rock
between 691 and 693. The Haram area had been
largely abandoned in the centuries between the
destruction of the Second Temple in 70 c.E. and
the arrival of the Muslims in 638. Abd al-Malik's
project was but part of a larger one to develop
the area and Islamize the city. Scholars have sev-
eral explanations for the domes unique design
and decorations. The prevailing view is that it
represents an Umayyad effort to claim Jerusalem
as a holy city for Muslims and to express the
triumph of Islam over the Byzantine Empire and
the Christian Church. Indeed, as art historian
Oleg Grabar has pointed out, the Arabic inscrip-
tions that decorate the building contain verses
from the Quran that recognize Jesus as a prophet
and refute the Christian doctrine of his divinity.
Moreover, the structure incorporates features
that echo those of the nearby Church of the Holy
Sepulcher (known to Eastern Christians as the
Basilica of the Anastasis), which it overlooks
on the western side, not those of a mosque. The
main mosque in the Haram area is the Aqsa
Mosque, located south of the Dome of the Rock.

The building has withstood centuries of polit-
ical and religious turmoil, neglect, and change.

It has undergone numerous repairs, and restora-
tions have been done to it. When Jerusalem fell
to the crusaders in 1099, Godrey of Bouillon, one
of their leaders, had it converted into a church
called the Temple of the Lord. When Saladin
(d. 1193) retook the city in 1187, he personally
joined with his troops in purifying the Haram and
removing Christian images and inscriptions from
the Dome of the Rock. During the 20th century,
the Dome of the Rock became a symbol of Pal-
estinian nationalism and Islamic activist move-
ments. It is still frequented by Muslims living
in the West Bank, Israelis, and foreign visitors.
Occasionally, it has also served as a flashpoint for
confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli
security forces.

See also Christianity and Islam; Crusades;
Israel; Judaism and Islam; Night Journey and
Ascent; Umayyad Caliphate.

Further reading: Amikam Elad. Medieval Jerusalem and
Islamic Worship: Holy Places , Ceremonies, Pilgrimage
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993); Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the
Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1996).

dreams

Dreams and visions (Arabic: ruya or manam)
occupy a special place in Islam as in many ancient
Near Eastern religions, since such experiences are
considered intimately linked to prophecy. In the
Quran (as in the Bible), God communicates to his
prophets through dreams and visions, and many
prophets are endowed with the power of dream
interpretation. Several hadith manifest Muham-
mad's affirmation of the relation between dreams
and prophethood; for example, “The divine rev-
elation comes to prophets in waking as well as
in sleep.'' Given the quranic precedent and the
importance that Muhammad attached to dreams,
the early Muslims greatly esteemed onciromancy,
the pre-Islamic science of dream classification and
interpretation. The belief in the divinely inspired

dreams 203

“good dream'* (ruya hasana ) — as distinguished
from demonic-inspired “muddled dreams" ( adghath
al-ahlam ) — has provided a paradigm for the social
acceptance of dreams and visions as authoritative
in Islamicate societies up until the modern period.
The proliferation of dream narratives in Islamic
(auto)biographical writings, historical chronicles,
belles-lettres, and philosophical treatises demon-
strates that they fulfill the social functions of arbi-
ters of contested religious and political AUTHORITY
and sources of communal or individual guidance.
Traditionally, oneiric accounts have predominated
in Sufi (auto)biographies.

Quranic narratives of the dreams and visions
of prophets and kings follow the biblical accounts.
Abraham's vision ( manam ) ordering him to sacri-
fice his son (Q 12:102), the dreams of Joseph, and
the “muddled, confused dreams" of Pharaoh (Q
12:44), among others, are recorded. The Islamic
inheritance of this oneiric legacy is seen in the
scriptural references to Muhammad's dreams
and visionary experiences, which prefigure criti-
cal events in his life. Prior to the Battle of Badr,
God granted Muhammad a dream of the victory
(Q 8:43). His triumphal entrance into Mecca is
described as the fulfillment of the vision (ruya)
of God's apostle (Q 48:27). The narrative of
Muhammad's Night Journey to Jerusalem (isra)
and heavenly ascension ( rn'iraj ) reads "We (God)
granted the vision \ruya | which we showed thee,
but as a trial for men" (Q 17:60). Despite this
quranic attestation of a vision, most Muslims
believe that the ascension was an actual physical
journey manifesting Muhammad's charismatic
powers.

The science of oneiromancy flourished under
Islam due to the interest in interpreting Muham-
mad's dreams and his declaration that in the
absence of further prophecies after him, God
would continue to guide human beings through
“good dreams." The most renowned system-
atic oneirocritics of the Islamic period include
Ibn Sirin (d. 728), al-Dinawari (alive in 1006),
al-Shahin (13th century), and al-Nabulusi (d.

1731). Treatises on the subject by the latter three
authors still survive and show the influence of
Artemidorus's Oncirocritica, which was translated
into Arabic by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873), the
Christian transmitter of Greek philosophy to the
Arabs. Such treatises typically expound defini-
tions and procedures of dream interpretation, the
duties of the oneirocritic, and elaborate systems of
dream classification.

For Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Sina
( d. 1037) and Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), dreams were
manifestations of ultimate reality, instruments
through which God (the divine intellect) trans-
mitted knowledge to mankind. In Sufi narratives,
spiritual progress is often recounted in ascend-
ing stages patterned on Muhammad's heavenly
ascension. Autobiographical accounts of Sufis’
dreams authenticate the authors’ own piety and
charisma vis-a-vis their peers. Often, as with AL-
Ghazali (d. 1111), a dream could be a liminal
experience marking a conversion to a new spiri-
tual state. Medieval historical chronicles often
exploited the symbolic nature and authority of
dreams to surreptitiously reveal an ostensibly
neutral author's true opinion about a communal
dispute.

In the modern period, dreams continue to
function as loci of power for Sufis and as alterna-
tive sources of authority for political or religious
reformers. Thus, Shah Wali Allah of Delhi (d.
1 762) became convinced of his mission to reform
the Islamic UMMA after dreaming of Muhammad
and his grandsons. The Fulani leader Usman Dan
Fodio (d. 1817) justified his jihad against social
corruption in response to a dream of the prophet
Muhammad. Nevertheless, some contemporary
Arabs and Muslims have exhibited skepticism
toward the authority of dreams. This is true of
Salafi reformers seeking to purify Islam from
the “innovations" of popular and Sufi religious
practices, such as Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905)
and Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935), who
had studied European ideas on skepticism and
rationality.

^ 204 Druze

See also bidaa; Night Journey and Ascent;
Salafism; Sufism.

Linda G. Jones

Further reading: Toufic Fahd, “The Dream in Medi-
eval Islamic Society.’ In The Dream in Human Societies,
edited by Gustav E. von Grunebaum and R. Caillois,
351-379 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1966); Marsha K. Hermansen, “A Cogni-
tive Approach to Visionary Experience in Islamic Sufi
Thought.” Religion 27 (1997): 25-43; Linda G. Jones,
“Dreams and Visions: A Comparative Analysis of Spiri-
tual Gifts in Medieval Christian and Muslim Conver-
sion Narratives." In Medieval Cultures in Contact, edited
by R. F. Gyug, 105-138 (New York: Fordham University
Press, 2003); Elizabeth Sirriyeh, "Dreams of the Holy
Dead: Traditional Islamic Oneirocriticism versus Salafi
Scepticism.” Journal of Semitic Studies 45, no. 1 (Spring
2000): 115-130.

Druze

The Druze arc Arabic-speaking followers of a reli-
gion of the same name that originated in the 1 1th
century. They call themselves "the Unitarians"
(muwahhidan). There are an estimated 1 million
members of this religious community, and they
live mainly in the mountains and rural areas of
Lebanon, Syria, and Israel.

The Druze religion began in Egypt during the
reign of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996-1021),
a caliph of the Ismaili Fatimid dynasty, who
promoted his dynasty's doctrines through a well-
organized system of religious outreach called
the daawa. Al-Hakim, who was known for his
extraordinary eccentricities, allowed himself to be
declared not just the divinely appointed Ismaili
imam, but God himself. This caused a split among
Ismailis, and the group favoring al-Hakim's divin-
ity formed the new religion in 1017 under the
leadership of Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Darazi (d.
1019), after whom the Druze were named, and
Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad. Al-Darazi disappeared
or was assassinated, so it was Hamza who orga-

nized the religion and its missionary activities,
which quickly won converts among peasants in
the mountains of Lebanon and Syria.

Hamza presented himself as the Imam of the
Druze, and he developed the doctrine that al-
Hakim, like Jesus in Christianity, was the embodi-
ment of God the creator in history. Those who
followed him were the Unitarians — worshippers ol
the one God as revealed in the person of al-Hakim.
Furthermore, Hamza formed a scriptural canon
for the new religion: six books of letters known
as Al-Hihma al-sharifa (The noble wisdom). The
sharia was abrogated, which meant, among other
things, that the Five Pillars of Islamic worship
were no longer required, polygamy was forbid-
den, and DIVORCE was discouraged. Instead, the
Druze were expected to honor seven duties, which
included belief in al-Hakim's divinity, rejection of
Satan and non-Druzc beliefs, submission to God,
truthfulness, and solidarity among the Druze com-
munity. Members of the religion were encouraged
to conceal their belief by practicing taqiyya when
among Muslims and other non-Druze peoples.
Other important tenets of the Druze religion are
belief in reincarnation immediately after death and
belief that the soul lives through multiple lives in
order to attain perfection.

Al-Hakim had disappeared mysteriously in the
Muqattam Hills of Cairo in 1021, and Hamza dis-
appeared around 1043. It was believed that both
had entered a period of concealment ( ghayba ),
and they were expected to return at some time
in the future to establish universal justice. Mean-
while, no more conversions were accepted, and
leadership was eventually assumed by a group
of religious authorities known as shaykhs, who
were drawn from an elite segment of people initi-
ated into the secrets of the religion. These Druze
initiates were called the uqqal, "enlightened ones."
Women as well as men were allowed to be mem-
bers of this group. The lay members of the Druze
community were called the juhhal , "ignorant
ones." Group loyalty and solidarity were very
strong among the Druze, and this is still the case

dua 205

today. Among the leading Druze families are the
Jumblats of Lebanon, the Atrashes of Syria, and
the Tarifs of Galilee in Israel.

See also Ismaili Shiism.

Further reading: Robert Brenton Betts. The Druze (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988); Talal Fandi
and Ziyad Abi-Shakra, cds., The Druze Heritage: An

Annotated Bibliography (Amman: Royal Institute for
Inter-Faith Studies; London: Druze Heritage Founda-
tion, 2001); Marshall G. S. Hodgson, "Al-Darazi and
Hamza in the Origin of the Druze Religion." Journal of
the American Oriental Society 82 (1962): 5-20.

dua See PRAYER.

East Africa

The Islamic religion first appeared in East Africa
during the lifetime of Muhammad (ca. 510-632),
when he sent some of his followers to Abyssinia
(in modern Ethiopia) in order to escape Meccan
persecution. By the 10th century, Muslim mer-
chants had introduced their faith into Somalia.
During the next 500 years, Muslims carried their
religion down the East African coast along the
trade routes. Muslim communities were estab-
lished in many of the trading towns along the
coast and on several nearby islands. Because of
their involvement in international trade, coastal
Islamic communities often included Muslims
of Arab, Persian, and South Asian origin who
belonged to Shafii, Ibadi, Shii, and several other
Islamic groups.

Prior to the modern era. East African Islam
was mostly limited to the coast due to its associa-
tion with Muslim merchants, who did not tend to
travel inland. This limitation did not apply to the
northeastern regions, where small Muslim prin-
cipalities arose as buffer states between Muslim
Egypt and Christian Ethiopia, and in the region
of the modern nation of SUDAN, where the sultan-
ates of Wadai, Dar Fur, and Sinnar held sway. In
these areas, Islam became the religion of the rul-

ing class but spread more slowly among common
people, who also clung to pre-lslamic practices.
Increasing ties with the Middle East and the rising
influence of Sufi orders led to a more widespread
Islamic adherence by people of the region between
the 16th and 18th centuries.

European colonial powers began to exert their
influence with the arrival of the Portuguese on the
East African coast during the 16th century. Portu-
guese support for Christians in the region led to
increased tensions with the Muslims. This situa-
tion was exacerbated by the triumph of European
colonialism at the end of the 19th century. Colo-
nial rule actually served to spread Islam through-
out societies in which Muslim communities had
predated colonialism. Europeans extended trade
into the interior, opening new fields for Islamic
expansion. They also promoted Muslims into
positions of influence and created urban condi-
tions that favored the spread of Islam. However,
in areas that had been largely untouched by Islam
prior to the colonial era, Christian missionaries
experienced considerable success.

As a result, East Africa entered the era of inde-
pendent states as a region divided among Muslim,
Christian, and “traditional," or indigenous, reli-
gious communities. This has often led to tension

206

education 207

between the different religious communities, as
evidenced by the long-standing civil war in Sudan
between the Islamic north and non-Muslim reb-
els in the south. In other countries, interfaith
relations have been more peaceful. For example,
Muslims in Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi have
used a variety of nonviolent means to advance
their interests as minority religious communities
within secular nation-states. Tensions between
Sufi orders and various revivalist groups have also
affected the development of East African Islam,
with revivalists accusing Sufis of promoting non-
Islamic practices. In summary, Islamic communi-
ties in East Africa are marked by their diversity
and include Muslims from a wide variety of ethnic
backgrounds, sectarian loyalties, educational lev-
els, economic statuses, and political viewpoints.

Sec also Christianity and Islam; West Africa.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: H. B. Hansen and M. Twaddle, Religion
and Politics in East Africa (London: Currey, 1995); John
Middleton, The World of the Swahili, an African Mercan-
tile Civilization (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1992); Randall L. Pouwels, Horn and Crescent:
Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African
Coast (800-1900) (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987); J. S. Trimingham, Islam in East Africa
(London: Oxford University Press, 1964).

education

Muslims, like all peoples, have sought skills and
knowledge in all aspects of life from different
kinds of teachers to suit their various needs, aspi-
rations, and values. Until the modern era, much
of their education was obtained orally and by
memorizing or by imitating skills demonstrated
by others. In traditional Muslim societies, parents
and other elders provided children with their
first lessons in morality and good manners. They
trained them to help perform household chores
such as food preparation, caring for and feeding

animals, fetching water, and collecting fuel for
the domestic hearth. While boys learned to farm
and tend the flocks, girls typically learned to bake
bread, cook rice, care for children and the elderly,
and weave textiles. Craftsmen such as potters,
tanners, glass-makers, carpenters, smiths, and
builders taught their skills to apprentices, while
would-be merchants learned to buy and sell in the
bazaar. Soldiers trained in military garrisons and
barracks, often located on the outskirts of a city.

Formal education for Muslims before the 19th
century consisted of a curriculum based on the
Quran. Developing basic reading and writing skills
was interwoven with learning how to submit to
God’s will, worship him, and obey his commands
and prohibitions. The importance of religious
education in Islam is conveyed by what many
accounts say was the first quranic verse revealed to
Muhammad, “Recite, for your lord is most noble;
who taught by the pen; he taught the human being
what he did not know” (Q 96:3-5). In other words,
God is the supreme educator. Elementary educa-
tion involved memorizing the Quran and hadith,
learning the Arabic alphabet, simple arithmetic,
and beginning to read Arabic prose and poetry.
calligraphy was sometimes taught, and Persian
poetry was included in the curricula of schools
in Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. At first,
instruction occurred in homes and mosques, but
eventually it shifted to the Quran school (a KUT-
TAB, maktab, or pesantren ), which was located in or
near a mosque. A male teacher called a tvudarris or
muallim presided in the classroom. He was a person
who had obtained at least some advanced knowl-
edge in the religious sciences. He taught between
10 and 20 students, sometimes with the help of an
assistant teacher or an advanced student. During
class, students sat on the floor with legs crossed in
a semicircle (halaqa) facing the teacher. Discipline
could be very strict, with corporal punishment
used when students misbehaved or failed their
lessons. Rote learning was standard in the Quran
school; independent thinking and creativity were
not encouraged.

208 education

Around the age of 15, students who had com-
pleted two or three years in a Quran school, or
the equivalent with tutors, could obtain higher
levels of education from religious experts who
taught at the congregational mosques (sing, jami),
mosque-colleges (sing, masjid ), and colleges of
law (sing, madrasa). The colleges and other places
of religious education developed from local learn-
ing circles of teachers and students and became
the dominant centers of higher learning during
the 1 1th and 12th centuries as a Sunni response
to philosophical rationalism and growing Shii
power and influence. The Shia also developed
institutions of higher education. In the early
period, major centers of learning were located in
the cities of Kufa, Basra, Baghdad, Nishapur, Shi-
raz, Balkh, Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Medina,
Granada, and Cordoba. Later ones emerged in
Isfahan, Qom, Mashhad, Najaf, and Istanbul. In
India, the leading centers of Islamic education
were in Delhi, Jawnpur, Bijapur, and Lucknow.
The salaries of the professors, their assistants,
and the expenses for founding, maintaining, and
operating the schools were traditionally financed
by private donations from wealthy and powerful
individuals, including women. As a rule, Islamic
schools were not funded directly by the govern-
ment or public taxes. They often housed manu-
script libraries, and there were usually copyists
and booksellers nearby, making it convenient for
students to acquire learning materials and texts.
Madrasas usually had residential quarters for lead-
ing professors and students, but additional hous-
ing was available at nearby hostels.

The purpose of the college was to teach the
sharia and related subjects. It usually specialized
in a particular school ( niadhhab ) of Islamic law.
Sunni madrasas specialized in teaching the juris-
prudence ( fiqh ) of one of the four major Sunni
schools — Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, or Hanbali. Shii
colleges emphasized Jaafari jurisprudence and
the teachings of the Twelve Imams. A few colleges
offered courses in more than one legal tradition
as well as in comparative fiqh. The curriculum

typically included courses in the Quranic sciences
(tafsir and alternative readings of the Arabic text),
hadith studies, Arabic language and literature,
and the biographies of Muhammad and his com-
panions. Theology, history, and ethics were also
taught, but as secondary subjects. Philosophy,
mysticism, the natural sciences, and advanced
MATHEMATICS were studied by only a select few;
they were more commonly studied outside the
college. Students who obtained higher education
became members of the ulama: judges, jurists,
preachers, or teachers of Islamic knowledge.
Although girls could attain an elementary educa-
tion, they were not allowed into the religious col-
leges. They could obtain a higher education only
in a limited way at the mosque, or, if they were
from the family of a great male scholar, at home.
Indeed, some of the most noted hadith scholars in
medieval Cairo and Damascus were the daughters
of famous male scholars.

Medieval madrasa education depended on the
development of informal, face-to-face relations
between students and teachers. Students joined
the learning circle of a scholar (shaykh) known for
his mastery of a particular field of Islamic scholar-
ship. Learning at this level still involved significant
amounts of memorization, but it also required
cultivating the skills of intellectual conversation
and disputation. Serious students might take years
to master the different areas of knowledge and the
relevant intellectual skills. At the same time, they
formed long-lasting networks of associations with
their teachers and fellow students. When they had
demonstrated mastery of a teacher s book or sub-
ject area, they would receive a certificate (ijaza)
that authorized them to teach what they had
learned to others. They did not get a degree from
the college as todays students do, but collected
certificates from individual professors with whom
they had studied. This authorization incorporated
them into traditions of scholarship that had been
transmitted over many generations. Moreover,
students often had to travel abroad in order to
further their education. The importance of edu-

education 209

cational travel was recognized early in Islamic
history, as expressed in a well-known hadith that
commanded, “Seek knowledge, even unto China."
Indeed, the Arabic word for student is talib, which
literally means “seeker." Traditions and practices
of learning, therefore, contributed to the creation
of a cosmopolitan Islam that transcended local
geographic, ethnic, and cultural boundaries.

Today the medieval Islamic tradition of learn-
ing has been largely displaced by modern systems
of education and knowledge. Survivals of the
past can still be found, but in fragmented and
altered forms. This transformation was caused by
several significant developments. It started when
far-reaching educational reforms were introduced
during the 19th century as a result of European
invasions of Muslim lands in eastern Europe,
the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.
Muslim rulers realized that they had to create
modern armies that could stand up to those of
Europe and reform governmental institutions to
make them operate more effectively than in the
past. They recruited advisers and teachers from
Europe to open modern schools based on Western
knowledge, and they sent delegations to study in
Europe. With the new schools came the printing
press to produce books and other instructional
materials in European languages. Arabic ceased
to be the universal language of learning; it was
replaced by French and English and later by local
languages, such as Turkish in Turkey and Persian
in Iran. European ideas about democracy, free-
dom, nationalism, capitalism, liberalism, social-
ism, fascism, and secularism were introduced to
Muslim lands along with the new schools and
languages.

The first Western-style schools were opened in
Istanbul, Cairo, and Tunis. Graduates went on to
serve as officers, doctors, engineers, and govern-
ment officials. They were in the forefront of mod-
ernizing Middle Eastern and North African states,
forming what scholars have called “bridgehead
elites" for European powers. By the middle of the
19th century, ministries of education were created

to operate centralized school systems based on
French models. When the Republic of Turkey was
created in 1923, all Islamic schools there were
closed down. In India, educational reform was
introduced by British colonial authorities, because
they needed literate, skilled natives to help govern
the country and serve in the army. Their larger
goal was to transform India into a modern, lib-
eral country like England. Indians, they believed,
would have to shed their own cultural heritage
in the process, which aroused strong anticolonial
nationalist feelings among the Indians.

Christian missionaries arrived from Europe
to found schools that offered education in mod-
ern subjects in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and
Egypt. These schools were attended by Muslims
and Jews as well as Christians. At Catholic mis-
sionary schools, the language of instruction was
usually French, and all students were required
to attend Mass, whether they were Christians or
not. Muslims also attended schools established by
American Protestants and Russian Orthodox mis-
sionaries. In some of these schools, speaking Ara-
bic was discouraged if not completely forbidden.
Other schools, such as the American University of
Beirut, founded by Protestant missionaries from
the United States, have played a significant role in
the modern Arabic literary renaissance.

Reform-minded Muslims responded to the
creation of schools based on European models
and Christian missionary influence by devising
models that combined Western with Islamic learn-
ing. These efforts were spearheaded by Muslim
modernists such as Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898)
in India and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897)
and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) in the Arab
Middle East. The reformed curricula emphasized
modern letters and sciences. The study of Islam
or the Quran was no longer dominant but altered
to fit with the teaching of secular subjects such as
history, literature, and “religion.” With the emer-
gence of new nation-states in the 20th century,
secular education prevailed in the public schools
and universities of most Muslim countries. School

210 Egypt

Girls’ school in Upper Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

curricula were designed to inculcate students with
a sense of patriotism as well as knowledge and
training needed to find employment in a modern
society. Nevertheless, the teaching of traditional
Islamic subjects continued on the elementary
levels at Quran schools and at select colleges and
universities, such as AL-AZHAR in Cairo, Islamic
University in Medina, and the Shii madrasas in
Najaf and Qom. Even at these institutions, how-
ever, modern influences were strongly felt. Al-
Azhar University, for example, has added colleges
of medicine, agriculture, and engineering.

The establishment of modern schools and
universities by secular governments, missionaries,
and Muslim reformers has improved the overall
educational level of people living in the countries
of the Muslim world. There are now hundreds of
state-run universities and a growing number of
private universities, many of them with professors
who have been educated, at least in part, in Europe
and North America. Nevertheless, the quality of
the educational experience varies widely. Many
schools and universities are overcrowded and lack
adequate funding for teachers' salaries, libraries,
textbooks, audio-visual equipment, computers,
and building maintenance. Girls have had access
to modern education since the 19th century but
often to a lesser extent than boys because of fam-

ily obligations, cultural traditions, and socioeco-
nomic factors.

Some observers have also asserted that schools
and universities have served as breeding grounds
for radical Islamic movements. While this may
be true in certain instances, such as the Islamic
revolutionary movement led by Ayatollah Ruhol-
lah Khomeini (d. 1989) and some groups inspired
by Wahhabi doctrines in Saudi-funded madrasas,
it is probably not as widespread as some have
proposed. Other factors are likely to be more
important in the proliferation of such movements.
On the other hand, it can be argued that modern
education has also improved the quality of life for
many, stimulated democratic forces, and fostered a
cosmopolitan, pluralistic outlook in many Muslim
countries.

See also Aligarh; authority; books and book-
making; Deoband; literacy; mufti; murid; Shiism.

Further reading: Jonathan P. Bcrkcy, The Transmission of
Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic
Education (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1992); Noura Durkee, “Recited from the Heart.” Saudi
Aramco World 51 (May/Junc 2000): 32-35; George
Makdisi. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in
Islam and the West (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh
Press, 1981); Roy Mottahcdch, Mantle of the Prophet
(New York: Random House, 1985); Charles Michael
Stanton, Higher Learning in Islam: The Classical Period,
a.d. 700-1300 (Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield,
1990); Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Educa-
tion, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

Egypt (Official name: Arab Republic
of Egypt)

Todays Arab Republic of Egypt is the most popu-
lous country in the Arab world at 81.7 million
residents (2008 est.), of whom probably 90 to 94
percent are Sunni Muslims, with the remaining 6
to 10 percent Christians, mainly Orthodox Copts.
It has an area of 386,258 square miles, which

Egypt 2 1 1

makes it about the size of Texas and New Mexico
combined. Egypt is said to be “the gift of the
Nile,” the great African river that bisects the coun-
try from south to north. The Nile drains into the
Mediterranean Sea via the delta, which fans out
northward from Cairo. Egypt shares borders with
Sudan to the south, Libya to the west, and Israel
and Gaza to the northeast. Its eastern limits are
defined by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba.

Modern Egypt’s government is based in the
capital city of Cairo and consists of a very strong
presidency, a parliament made up of a more impor-
tant lower peoples assembly and a less significant
advisory council, as well as a fairly independent
judicial system. Islam, according to the constitu-
tion amended in 1980, is the official religion of
the state, and Islamic law (sharia) is proclaimed
to be “the principle source of legislation*' (Article
2). Egypt's economy is heavily reliant on agricul-
ture, most of which goes to the domestic market.
The major earners of hard currency are tourism,
remittances from Egyptians working abroad, and
oil exports.

In ancient times, Egypt was one of several
cradles of world civilization and one of the major
world powers. Egypt was part of the Roman
Empire, ruled from Constantinople, when it was
conquered by the Muslim armies in 641-642. For
the first several centuries, Egypt's prime impor-
tance for the Islamicate empire, with its capital in
Medina, Damascus, or Baghdad, was as a source
of grain and of surplus wealth to be extracted in
taxes. By the 10th century, however, the Abbasid
Empire was weakening, and Egypt was becoming
more independent. The foreign Fatimid dynasty
of lsmaili Shiite persuasion, conquered Egypt in
969, founded Cairo in 970, and made Egypt the
center of a caliphate to rival that of Baghdad. Two
dynasties followed, the Ayyubids (1171-1250)
and the Mamluks (1250-1517), both contributing
greatly to making Egypt a great center of learning,
culture, and power. Al-Azhar, originally founded
by the Fatimids as the center of their missionary
efforts, eventually came to be the foremost center

of Sunni learning. The first Ayyubid ruler, Sala-
DIN (d. 1193), was responsible for defeating the
crusaders and retaking Jerusalem. The Mamluks
saved Egypt and Syria from the onslaught of the
Mongols, who had already destroyed Baghdad
and many of the cities in eastern Islamicate lands.
In 1517, however, Egypt came under the control
of the Ottomans, the last universal Islamicate
empire.

Napoleon wrested Egypt from the largely
nominal rule of the Ottomans in 1798. His domin-
ion lasted only three years, but the shock of the
massive defeat suffered by the Ottoman troops

Downtown Cairo and the Nile River, as seen from the
Jazira Tower, looking southward. The Cairo Opera is in
the foreground. (Juan E. Campo)

'Css^D

212 Egypt

was to change Egypt's history. Muhammad Ali (r.
1805-49), determined to build a European-style
military to defend his rule, began the process of
centralization, institutionalization, and discipline
that would eventuate in an independent Egyptian
nation later in the century, although this was not
his intent. His grandson Ismail (r. 1863-79) did
much to modernize Egypt ("civilize" was the
term he used), changing the architectural face of
its cities, expanding education, and allowing the
development of journalism.

Great Britain, looking after its financial inter-
ests in Egypt and eager to control this strategic
location, invaded in 1882, remaining in the coun-
try, under one guise or another, until 1954. British
rule set back reform and development in most
respects, although freedoms of the press and reli-
gion were probably greater during this period than
most others in recent memory. The revolution of
1952, which was to usher in complete indepen-
dence, changed Egypt tremendously, ending the
monarchy imposed by the British, breaking up
the enormous landholdings that came to charac-
terize Egypt in the 19th century, and reorienting
Egypt away from British influence to leadership
in the nonaligncd movement. Jamal Abd al-Nasir,
Egypt's president from 1954 to 1970, was the
charismatic former army officer who spearheaded
these efforts while also attempting to realize the
unification of all the Arab peoples. With the
support of the United States, Nasir successfully
defended the country against an invasion by the
armies of Israel, Britain, and France in the 1956
Suez War, which was sparked when he placed
the canal under Egyptian sovereignty. Modern
Egyptian history has played out in the shadow of
the Arab-lsraeli struggle, which has proved much
more devastating to the Arabs, including the
Egyptians, than to Israel. Egypt fought unsuccess-
ful wars against Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973.
Economic development, educational reform, and
democratization all were put off in the name of
the greater struggle. The Camp David accords
that Abd al-Nasirs successor, Muhammad Anwar

al-Sadat (r. 1970-81) signed with Israel in 1978
inaugurated a welcome era of relative peace and
stability that allowed some attention to be paid
to these crucial issues. Al-Sadat shared the Nobel
Peace Prize with Israeli prime minister Menachem
Begin for his role in negotiating and implement-
ing the accords. Another result of the agreement
was that Egypt became a close ally of the United
States.

Religious ferment in Egypt has been important
to the entire region. The Muslim Brotherhood,
founded in 1928 by Hasan AL-Banna, has helped
in a variety of ways to consolidate the Islam-
ization of society in Egypt and elsewhere. The
radical ideologue Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) has been
crucial in providing an intellectual underpinning
to the Islamist movements that arose after the
1967 Arab-lsraeli War. But Egyptian intellectuals
such as Taha Hussein (d. 1973) and Nasr Hamid
Abu Zayd (b. 1943) have sought innovative ways
of integrating textual criticism into the study
of Islam, and in this respect Egyptian thinkers
arc often ahead of their times. In other cultural
spheres, too, such as literary production, the
cinema, music, and the broadcast media, Egypt is
the most important nation in the Arabic-speaking
world. Its most famous novelist and short story
writer, Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), won the
Nobel Prize in literature in 1988 for his moving
portrayals of life in Egypt and his enlightened
treatment of contemporary political and religious
subjects.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Copts and the
Coptic Church; Ottoman dynasty.

John Iskander

Further reading: Geneive Abdo, No God but God: Egypt
and the Triumph of Islam (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000); Khaled Fahmy, All the Pashas
Men: M ehmed AH, His Army, and the Making of Modern
Egypt (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press. 1997); Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts:
Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2002).

eschatology 213

Eid See holidays; Id al-Adha; Id al-Fitr.

Emigrants (Arabic: muhajirun)

The emigration, or Hijra, of Muhammad and his
first followers from Mecca to Medina is consid-
ered to be the foundational event in the history
of the early Muslim community. Beginning in 622
and continuing until the conquest of Mecca in
630, small groups of supporters, men and women
alike, abandoned their old homes to escape per-
secution and took up residence in Medina (then
known as Yathrib). These people are remembered
in Islamic tradition as the Emigrants. They were
converts from different tribes and classes in Mecca
and tribes outside Mecca who joined Muhammad
in Medina. Aside from members of Muhammad's
immediate family, the Emigrants also included his
cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661)
and the other men who would become the first
caliphs after Muhammad's death — Abu Bakr (d.
634), Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 644), and Uth-
MAN IBN Affan (d. 636). According to early his-
torical sources, not every Emigrant was of Arabian
descent; one was Bilal, a former slave from Ethio-
pia, and another was Salman, a Persian convert.
It is estimated that the total number of Emigrants
was less than 400.

Together with the Ansar (helpers), Arab con-
verts to Islam from Medina, the Emigrants held a
place of honor in early Islamic society. Muham-
mad formed a brotherhood between them when
they first arrived in Medina, and he soon con-
cluded a series of agreements with other Arab and
Jewish groups that ensured that the Emigrants
would enjoy protection and solidarity in their
new home. They participated in the early battles
against Muhammad's opponents in Mecca and
Medina and were given priority in the distribu-
tion of the booty. Both the Emigrants and the
Ansar would later be remembered for the roles
they played in collecting, reciting, and comment-
ing on the Quran. They also played an important
role in the transmission of the HADITH. Although

the status of the Emigrants remained high after
Muhammad's death, their political influence in
the community shifted to leaders of the QURAYSH
tribe in Mecca, who had once led the opposition
against Muhammad. Abu Bakr (r. 632-634) relied
on the Quraysh, who had converted to Islam after
630, for support in his claim to become the first
CALIPH and for assistance in keeping the commu-
nity unified. This laid the basis for the eventual
rise of the Umayyad Caliphate, which was led by
descendants from the Banu Umayya, a leading
Quraysh clan.

In the 20th century, other Muslims would be
called Emigrants. These included those who moved
to Turkey from Russia and southeastern Europe to
avoid being ruled by non-Muslim governments, as
well as Indian Muslims who moved to Pakistan as
a result of the 1947 partition of India.

See also caliphate; Companions of the
Prophet.

Further reading: Michael Lcckcr, Muslims, Jews, and
Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1995); W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet
and Statesman (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1964).

emigration See Hijra.

Enoch See Idris.

eschatology (Greek eschatos, “last”)

In the comparative study of religions, eschatology
is a term used for beliefs and doctrines concerning
last things — death, the end of the world, and the
afterlife. Muslims all share certain expectations
for the end times, but there are significant differ-
ences between Sunni and Shiite expectations, as
well as cases of difference between scholarly and
popular interpretations within the same sect. All
Muslims believe that time is linear, having begun

tCs!SS 214 ethics and morality

with God's creation of the universe, and all expect
an end to human history to come at a time of
Gods choosing. The end, according to the Quran,
will arrive suddenly but will be accompanied by
dramatic signs. At that time, the dead will be
raised physically, and all will be judged according
to their faith and deeds. All Muslims believe that
there is life after death.

The Quran has a good deal to say about
the coming end. That humans will be called to
account for their good and bad deeds on that
day is affirmed repeatedly. The last day will be
accompanied by a great trumpet blast, when “the
mountains arc lifted up and crushed with a single
blow" (Q 69:14). Humans will be reunited with
their bodies and will await judgment in great fear.
The day of reckoning is usually presented as a
matter of receiving a book with ones accumulated
deeds. Those to whom the book is given in the
right hand will enter paradise (generally called the
garden), while the others will enter the fires of
hell (often simply the Fire). Both the rewards and
the punishments are rather graphically depicted
in the Quran and are given substantial elaboration
in hadith and other traditional materials.

Before the day of reckoning, however, Mus-
lims expect that several events not mentioned in
the Quran will occur. Many traditions speak of a
time of inversions to precede the end, in which
“normal” social relations will be turned on their
head: sons will not obey their fathers, slave girls
will give birth to their own masters, and the poor
and the weak will become leaders. While there
is no unanimity on this point, the general thrust
of popular Sunni eschatological belief is that the
end times will see the rise of a deceptive leader, or
Antichrist (Dajjal), who will be fought and van-
quished by either the Mahdi or Jesus, ushering in a
millennial period before the Judgment Day. Being
extra-Quranic, however, this popularly accepted
narrative is highly contested by Muslim scholars.
Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), for instance, rejected the
entire luxuriant set of traditions that purport to
prophecy the coming of the Mahdi, which would

also raise doubts as to his belief in the rise of the
Dajjal and the reappearance of Jesus.

For the Twelve-lMAM Shia, a belief in the
Mahdi comes to be an article of faith and is thus
much more central than it is for Sunnis. Accord-
ing to Shii histories, the 12th IMAM, or descendant
of Ali through his son Husayn, disappeared from
view after 874 but is still present in the world
and will return at the end of time to fill the earth
with justice as it is filled now with corruption and
injustice. To be a true believer, one must have this
belief in the presence and eventual reemergence
of the imam Mahdi. In this sense, Shii theology
indicates that humanity is always on the threshold
of the millennial age.

See also afterlife; creation; faith; Ismaili Shi-
ism; Twelve-Imam Shiism.

John Iskander

Further reading: David Cook. Studies in Muslim Apoca-
lyptic (Princeton. N.J.: Darwin Press, 2002); Muhammad
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, The Remembrance of Death and
the Afterlife, Kitab dhihr al-mawt wa-ma badahu, Book XL
of The Revival of the Religious Sciences, Ihya ulum al-Din.
Translated by T. J. Winter (Cambridge: Islamic Texts
Society, 1995); F E. Peters, Judaism, Christianity and
Islam: The Classical Texts and Their Interpretation, vol. 3,
The Works of the Spirit (Princeton. N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press. 1990); Jane 1. Smith and Yvonne Y. Had-
dad. The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection
(Albany: State University of New York Press. 1981 ).

ethics and morality

Ethics and morality are concerned with how
humans should live their lives in accordance with
what they know to be right and wrong. The two
terms are often used interchangeably. However,
when scholars distinguish them, they understand
ethics to mean philosophical reflection upon
moral conduct, while morality pertains to specific
norms or codes of behavior. Questions of ethics,
therefore, involve such subjects as human nature

ethics and morality 215

and the capacity to do good, the nature of good
and evil, motivations for moral action, the under-
lying principles governing moral and immoral
acts, deciding who is obliged to adhere to the
moral code and who is exempted from it, and the
implications of either adhering to the moral code
or violating it. Morality encompasses the values
and rules that govern human conduct, such as the
Golden Rule, which holds that a person should
treat others as he or she would be treated.

There is no necessary relation between ethi-
cal beliefs and religion; people in many times and
places engage in moral action without having to
adhere to a particular religion. Nevertheless, most
religions promote moral teachings and engage in
ethical reflection. Religions also provide motiva-
tions for acting in accordance with moral principles
by promising rewards and punishments from a god
or some other supramundane power in this world
or in the AFTERLIFE. Religions can also criticize indi-
vidual and communal morality. This “prophetic"
function is most evident among the Abrahamic
religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but it
is present in other religions too. Lastly, it should be
noted that the close relationship between religion
and morality can have negative aspects. When a
religious authority, normally expected to embody
moral virtues, is believed to have committed crimi-
nal, tyrannical, or other immoral acts, it can
provoke resentment or opposition and engender
sectarian and reform movements.

Ethical awareness has been a defining feature
of Islam, even though engaging in moral philoso-
phy per se has not. Rather than being a formal area
of knowledge, ethics in Islam has been a topic
addressed more often in a practical sense within a
variety of contexts, including ones in which it was
engaged with non-Muslim ethical traditions, both
religious and nonreligious. Indeed, Islamic moral-
ity has formed internally among Sunnis, Shiis,
Sufis, and rationalists while also being shaped
by interactions with pre-Islamic Arabian, Greek,
Persian, Jewish, Christian, and other ethical tradi-
tions on the local and global levels. This process

has continued in the modern period as a result
of encounters with Western powers and modern
secular moral systems.

The word islam implies a moral outlook,
since it is understood to mean submission to
God's will, which is seen as a good that brings
a person into harmony with the “natural" order
of CREATION. Submission and performing good
deeds, the Quran teaches, are done because
they are prescribed by God, they reciprocate
God for the blessings he provides, and they are
rewarded, whereas rebellious and wrongful acts
are punished. Muslims believe that performing
the required Five Pillars of Islam is “worship”
or “service" ( ibada ), and they have given it moral
meaning. Therefore, they associate the virtue of
keeping bodily hygiene with prayer ablutions,
overcoming selfishness with fasting, and promot-
ing equality among believers with pilgrimage.
Islamic morality is clearly involved in the duty of
almsgiving, a charitable redistribution of wealth
for the benefit of the needy and the community
as a whole. Participants in the annual HAJJ to
Mecca, the fifth pillar, arc prohibited from being
violent, acting rudely, and harming most plants
and animals. According to the HADITH, those who
perform the hajj properly are forgiven their sins
and rewarded with paradise. Furthermore, in a
famous hadith, called the Hadith of Gabriel, islam
and faith (iman) itself are closely associated with
ihsan , “doing the good." Ihsan, the hadith states,
means doing what is good and beautiful in wor-
shipping God, knowing that he is aware of what a
person does, even if he (God) is not visible.

Muslims look primarily to the Quran and
the SUNNA of Muhammad, “customary practice"
expressed in the hadith, for moral guidance. The
Quran's chief moral instruction, one that echoes
throughout the history of Islam, is for people to
“command what is known to be right ( maaruf )
and forbid what is reprehensible ( munkar ).” This
is stated, for example, in the third chapter: “Let a
people from among you invite (others) to good-
ness. Let them command what is known to be

216 ethics and morality

right and forbid what is reprehensible. They are
the ones who will prosper" (Q 3:104, cf. 9:7).
Such statements are closely connected to obeying
God and worshipping him.

The question of what is “known to be right"
has been an important subject of debate among
Muslims. One position is that whatever God com-
mands is what is right. The problem with this is
that the Quran offers more in the way of general
principles than specific rules (most of these
rules are found only in the first few chapters of
the Quran). The principles in question include
justice, goodness, kindness, forgiveness, honesty,
and piety. This has led some to take the posi-
tion that humans are born with an instinctive or
innate knowledge of what is right and wrong, but
because of their wayward and fickle nature, they
do not always choose to act morally. The purpose
of the Quran, therefore, is not so much to dictate
specific commandments, but to “remind" people
of what they should already know by nature and
to guide them to do the right thing. If they dis-
obey, they will pay a price for it, if not here and
now, then in the hereafter.

The most commonly used Islamic term for
morality, the Arabic word akhlaq , is not found
in the Quran, but the root kh-I-cf from which it
is derived occurs frequently in connection with
the act of creation. From a Muslim perspective,
therefore, human morality is part of the created
order of the world, intimately connected with
God the creator. The “signs" (sing, ava) of God
are evident in the natural world, in events, and
in verses of scripture. The verses provide moral
guidance, as does the wider world. Humans, as
part of Gods creation, are called upon to contem-
plate these signs to discover the truth and know
what is best.

The other major source of Islamic moral wis-
dom, the sunna of Muhammad, is based on the
hadith. Muslims consider Muhammad's sunna to
be a body of norms that should be followed in
worship and in everyday life. The idea of Muham-
mad as an exemplary figure comes from the

remembered experience of the first Muslims, and
it is also supported by the Quran, which regards
him as a “beautiful model" (Q 33:21). Hadith
collections had chapters about the virtues that he
embodied. These included respect for parents and
elders, maintaining strong family ties, being good
to neighbors, caring for children, avoiding abuse
of servants and slaves (a social institution until
the 19th and 20th centuries), being well-man-
nered, offering hospitality to guests, visiting the
sick, showing mercy to animals, being patient and
sincere, greeting people correctly, asking permis-
sion before entering a house, dressing modestly,
and avoiding lying and rude speech. These were
all taken to be demonstrations of Muhammad's
moral character, called akhlac] or adab. Likewise,
Sufis drew upon the hadith about Muhammad,
too, to emphasize the virtues of generosity, pov-
erty, humility, and concern for others, including
the poor.

From the eighth century onward, Muslim legal
scholars, the ulama, consulted and debated with
each other over how to systematize the quranic
commandments and Muhammad's sunna so as
to be able to effectively implement the sharia,
or sacred law, in a complex, multicultural, and
historically changing Islamicatc society. In doing
so, they were not satisfied with determining
only what was legally required (halal) and what
was forbidden (hara m), nor did they trust indi-
viduals to know what the right thing to do was.
Rather, they devised a five-step scale for classify-
ing human acts according to their conformity to
God's will: obligatory, recommended, permitted,
disapproved, and forbidden. The ulama then
detailed all sorts of human activities, rule on their
permissibility, and on what kinds of rewards and
penalties, if any, such acts entailed. Sunni as well
as Shii jurists engaged in this activity, but other
Muslims were familiar with it, too, especially
among the educated elites living in urban areas.
In addition to courts of law, Muslim authorities
created the office of muhtasib to enforce the moral
code in public places and oversee transactions

Europe 217

conducted in the marketplace. Alongside this, the
juridical construction of morality, there was also
a culture of refined behavior (adcib) that shaped
the ethical outlook of urban Muslims. This was
expressed in writings that set forth the virtues for
different classes and groups to honor, including
the ulama, rulers, bureaucrats, merchants, and
craftsmen.

Moral philosophy was an important subject
for Muslim intellectuals, even if it did not have
equal weight with sharia and F/QH in the eyes of
the ulama. The scholars who contributed to this
area of ethics during the Middle Ages were Abu
Yusuf Yaacub al-Kindi (d. 870), Abu Bakr Muham-
mad al-Razi (also known as Rhazcs, d. ca. 925),
Abu Nasr al-Farabi (also known as Alfarabius, d.
950), and Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina (also known
as Avicenna, d. 1037), Muhammad ibn Rushd (also
known as Averroes, d. 1198), and Nasir al-Din
Tusi (d. 1198). Perhaps the most noteworthy of
all were Miskawayh (d. 1040), the Persian author
of Refinement of Morality; Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
(d. 1111), Persian mystic and author of Revival of
the Religious Sciences; and the Andalusian man of
letters Ali ibn Hazm (d. 1064). Originally sparked
by the rationalist theology of the Mutazila in
the eighth century and further influenced by
Aristotelian ethics, this area of Muslim scholarly
discussion declined after the 12th century, but it
experienced revived interest among Muslims in
the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today Islamic ethics and morality are receiv-
ing close scrutiny in Muslim lands and beyond
as never before. The encounters of traditional
Islamic moral laws and values with modern secu-
lar laws and values have raised urgent questions
about whether and how the sharia in whole or in
part requires preservation, reform, adaptation, or
rejection. Respect for human rights, individual-
ism, religious freedom, and womens rights has
caused Muslims to search their ethical heritage to
find where there is compatibility and where there
is not. Violent actions performed in the name
of Islam against public officials and civilians by

militant organizations have given added urgency
to this search. While it is true that many Mus-
lims have condemned violent acts in the name
of religion, they have also sought to make moral
arguments in favor of violence (jihad) and revolu-
tion in the face of oppression, tyranny, and attacks
against core beliefs and practices. As in the past,
given the many ways in which Muslims under-
stand and practice their religion, views on these
and many other issues diverge widely within the
worldwide Muslim community.

See also abortion; crime and punishment;

CUSTOMARY LAW; FATE; HISBA ; ISLAMISM; MUTAZILI

School; suicide; women.

Further reading: Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari,
Imam Bukhari's Book of Muslim Morals and Manners.
Translated by Yusuf Talal DeLorcnzo (Alexandria, Va.:
Al-Saadawi Publications, 1997); Michael Cook, Forbid-
ding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2003); Frederick M. Denny,
“Ethical Dimensions of Islamic Ritual Law.” In Religion
and Law: Biblical -Judaic and Islamic Perspectives , edited
by Edwin B. Firmage, Bernard G. Weiss, and John W.
Welch, 199-210 (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns,
1990); Richard G. Hovannisian, cd., Ethics in Islam
(Malibu. Calif.: Undcna, 1985); Toshihiko Izutsu, Eth -
ico-Religious Concepts in the Quran (Montreal: McGill
University Press, 1966); Gary E. Kessler, Philosophy of
Religion: Toward a Global Perspective (Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth Publishing, 1999); Kevin Reinhart, Before
Revelation: The Boundaries of Muslim Moral Thought
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).

Europe

Although often misperceivcd as alien to Europe,
Islam has had a long and varied presence in that
part of the world. It first entered Europe with the
Arab and Berber armies that conquered the Iberian
Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) from the
Goths in 711. Muslims later entered Gaul but suf-
fered defeat at Poitiers in 732 and in the Pyrenees
passes in 748. Successive Islamic dynasties ruled

21 8 Europe

Sicily, Malta, and Syracuse from 827 until the
Norman conquests in 1090-91. Islamic rule lasted
longest in Iberia, reaching its zenith during the
Umayyad Caliphate (912-1031) and ending with
the fall of Granada (1492). Felipe III expelled the
remaining Moriscos (forcibly baptized Muslims
who remained in Spain after 1492) from Spain
in 1609-14. In eastern Europe, Anatolian Turks
invaded the Balkans during the mid- 13th century,
and Islam continued to spread with the Ottoman
conquests of the 14th century. The Ottomans cap-
tured Constantinople (later Istanbul), the capital
of the Byzantine Empire, in 1453, and Poland,
Lithuania, Hungary, and Budapest came under
Muslim rule during the 15lh to the 1 7th centuries.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire early in the

20th century, the two World Wars, the dissolu-
tion of Yugoslavia, and the more recent Balkan
wars decimated Muslim populations in Poland
and Hungary, but significant numbers remain in
the Balkans. In western Europe, Islam has grown
since the 1950s due to conversion and immigra-
tion from the Indian subcontinent, Africa, and
the Middle East to Britain, France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Italy, and Spain.

Cordoba, the capital of Andalusia, was the
largest, wealthiest, and most advanced city in
medieval Europe. It had paved, illuminated streets,
running water, textiles, paper and glass factories,
public baths, numerous libraries, and free schools.
The Great Mosque of Cordoba rivaled its coun-
terparts in Cairo and Baghdad and was Europe’s

Suburban London mosque, formerly a church (J. Gordon Melton)

Europe 219

first university. The Muslim rulers of Andalusia
and Sicily lavishly patronized artists, philoso-
phers, and scientists. Muslims were innovators
in mathematics, philosophy, medicine, botany,
astronomy, and agriculture, and they recovered
Greek philosophical and scientific works lost to
Christian Europe. Hydraulic technology used and
developed by Muslims revolutionized traditional
Mediterranean AGRICULTURE.

The Arabo-lslamic cultural and intellectual
heritage has been enormously important to Latin
Europe. These traditions were transmitted via
the Mozarab (Arabized) Christians, trade and
diplomatic relations, oral performances of Arabic
poetry and stories, and especially the transla-
tion schools in Toledo and elsewhere. Iberian
and Norman monarchs sponsored translations
of Muslim philosophical, scientific, and literary
works, including the commentaries of Ibn Sina
(Avicenna, d. 1037) and Ibn Rushd (Avcrrocs, d.
1198) on Aristotle and the medical compendia of
Ibn Sina and al-Razi (Rhazes, d. ca. 935) — stan-
dard medical texts in Western Europe until the
16th century. Translated mathematical treatises
introduced calculation with Arabic numerals,
algebra, trigonometry, and advanced geometry
into the West. Arabic literature and lyric influ-
enced or anticipated European literary genres.
Romance lyric-songs and Provencal courtly
love poetry arc historically related to the Arabic
muwashshah (a form of Andalusian love poetry).
Dantes renowned Divine Comedy (14th century)
borrowed motifs from accounts of Muhammad's
Night Journey and Ascent. Boccaccio incorpo-
rated translated Arabic fables into The Decameron
(14th century). In the 16th century, the mystical
symbolism of John of the Cross and Teresa of
Avila echoed the earlier Spanish Sufi writings of
Ibn al-Arabi (12th century), Ibn Abbad of Ronda
(14th century), and others. Arabic loan words in
the Romance languages and English reflect the
Arabo-lslamic cultural legacy. Finally, many Ara-
bic words entered Spanish and, though written
in Latin letters, the Maltese language spoken on

the Mediterranean island nation ol Malta today is
considered a dialect of Arabic.

It is estimated that between 44 million Mus-
lims (6 percent of Europe's total population) live
in Europe as of 2008. In southeastern Europe,
Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina have the
largest percentages of Muslims: 70 percent and
40 percent, respectively. Among the countries of
western Europe, France has the largest Muslim
population (about 5 million, mostly from North
Africa), followed by Germany (about 2 million,
mostly from Turkey) and the United Kingdom
(about 1.5 million, mostly from lndia-Pakistan
and the Arab Middle East). Significant numbers
also live in Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Many of these Muslims arrived after 1950 as guest
workers to help rebuild Europe after the devasta-
tion caused by World Wars I and II. In recent
decades, many immigrants have come as refugees
from strife-ridden countries such as Lebanon,
Sudan, and Iran. Muslim scholars and intellectu-
als have gone to Europe for their education or as
immigrants and refugees. Among the most promi-
nent arc Fazi.ur Rahman (from Pakistan), Muham-
mad Arkoun (from Algeria), Bassam Tibi (from
Syria), Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (from Egypt), and
Taslima Nasrin (from Bangladesh). Award-win-
ning authors of Islamic heritage living in Europe
include Salman Rushdie (from India) and Tariq
Ali (from Pakistan). Tariq Ramadan (b. 1962) is
a leading representative of the new generation of
reform-minded Muslim intellectuals who were
born in Europe. Immigrant Muslims have estab-
lished mosques and community organizations in
all European countries. A major institute for the
study of Ismaili Shiism was founded by the Aga
Khan in London. Although many immigrants
maintain close contact with their homelands,
all are required to follow the civil laws of their
adopted countries of residence.

While immigrants, converts, and native-born
Muslims have made significant contributions to
contemporary European society and culture, there
have also been times of significant tension and

220 Eve

cultural confrontation. Veiling and the status of
Muslim Women in secular society have been par-
ticularly divisive issues. To varying degrees, Euro-
pean societies have discriminated against Muslim
immigrants and citizens, which was a factor behind
the eruption of riots in French cities in 2005. One
of the Al-Qaida cells involved in the 9/11 attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in
2001 was based in Hamburg, Germany. As a con-
sequence of cultural animosities and recent wars
in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel-Palestine, radical
Islamic groups have launched terrorist attacks on
civilian targets in Madrid and London.

See also anti-Semitism; Christianity and Islam;
Janissary; Judaism and Islam; secularism; Sufism.

Linda G. Jones and Juan E. Campo

Further reading: Jack Goody Islam in Europe (Cam-
bridge: Polity Press, 2004); Shireen Hunter, cd., Islam,
Europe’s Second Religion: The New Social, Cultural and
Political Landscape (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publish-
ers, 2002); Salma Khadra Jayyusi, cd., The Legacy of
Muslim Spain (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994); Maria Rosa
Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History :
A Forgotten Heritage (Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press, 1987); Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims
and the Future of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2004).

Eve See Adam and Eve.

evil eye

Belief that the eye has the power to cause evil or
misfortune is found in many cultures. It forms
but one part of a magical worldview that attempts
to explain the accidents and illnesses that afflict
people. Rather than being a generalized theory of
misfortune, it is always concerned with explain-
ing specific instances: What caused a particular
person or possession to suffer harm at this or
that time and place while others nearby or in a

Evil eye poster, with medallions containing the name
of God (r.) and Muhammad (I.), framed by protective
verses from the Quran (printed poster)

similar situation remained unaffected? In other
words, belief in the evil eye is but one way of
trying to account for why bad things happen to
good people, and it may even conflict with other
explanations. Religious conservatives object that
it contradicts the belief that ultimately it is God
who determines what happens for good and evil.
People with a modern scientific outlook, on the
other hand, may refute evil eye beliefs as irratio-
nal superstitions. But for the many who hold to a
magical worldview, identifying the evil eye as the
cause of an affliction allows them to take steps to
deflect it or minimize its effect, even if it cannot
be completely eliminated. The fact that people
think that they can take preventive measures
against it provides them with a sense that they
can exercise control over otherwise unpredictable
and painful events in life. This helps explain the
acceptance and persistence of evil eye beliefs in so
many parts of the world.

In Islamicate cultures, evil eye beliefs are espe-
cially pronounced among peoples living in lands
from Morocco to India, including the eastern
Mediterranean region and the Arabian Peninsula.
Many non-Muslims living in these areas also share
these beliefs, including Christians, Jews, and Hin-
dus. There arc several names given to the evil eye

exegesis 221

in the languages of these cultures. In Arabic, it
can be al-ayn, “the eye,” al-nazra, “the look,'* or
al-hasad, “envy.” In Persian, it is known as chashm
zakhm , “the eye that wounds," or chashm shur f
"the salty eye.” A child, a nursing mother, a valu-
able farm animal, a fruitful agricultural field, a
plate of good food, or a valuable possession (such
as a car or truck, a machine used in making a liv-
ing, a business, or a home) can provoke feelings of
jealousy or inadvertently attract envious glances
from passersby, neighbors, friends, or competitors
and opponents. Once such a persons envious eye
looks at or “hits” its target, it can cause it serious
harm. If the victim is a person, especially a male
child, it can cause illness, an accident, or even
death. The milk of a lactating woman, a goat, or
a cow may stop flowing. A field can suffer crop
damage. A car or machine might be destroyed or
damaged in an accident or suffer a breakdown.
Ones business or home might burn down. Prais-
ing someone or something, even with the best of
intentions, is thought to make the object of praise
even more susceptible to the malevolent effects of
the envious eye.

Within such a belief system, a number of
preventive devices and remedies are available.
The most common is to place a colorful piece
of jewelry, often a blue and white bead, on the
person or possession to deflect “the look." An
amulet containing the name of God or a verse
from the Quran also has apotropaic power.
Many people hang or paint verses of the Quran
in their businesses and homes or on their cars
and trucks. Among the parts of the Quran usu-
ally employed for such purposes are the BASMALA
(Q 1:1), the Fatiha (Q 1), the Throne Verse (Q
2:255), and the last two chapters of the Quran,
known as “the protection-seeking ones” (Q 113
and 114). In fact, Q 113 implores Gods protec-
tion “from the evil of the envier when he envies."

A copy of the whole Quran is also believed to
offer protection.

Similarly, in everyday speech, people utter
formulaic phrases containing Gods name, such
as smallah, “in the name of God," ma shaa Allah ,
“whatever God wills," or Allah akbar y “God is
greater." One popular incantation used against the
evil eye states, “In the name of God I cast a spell
to protect you from everything that may harm
you; from every envious eye. In the name of God
I cast a spell to protect you, and may God heal
you from every harmful person or eye.” There
are many other methods used for deflecting the
eye. Among them is “dispraise.” For example,
instead of praising a cute or beautiful baby, well-
wishers instead will tell the parents how ugly the
child is. Proud parents will interpret such expres-
sions as compliments. Other protective measures
include disguising male infants as females, leaving
them unwashed, and calling them by unflatter-
ing names. Images of outstretched hands arc also
thought to provide protection. With a new home,
business, vehicle, or machine, it is not unusual for
the owners to sacrifice an animal and make hand
imprints with its blood in a visible place on the
new possession. Burning incense and consulting
with male and female magicians are other mea-
sures people use for protection from the evil eye.

Sec also amulets and talismans; animals;

BARAKA; CHILDREN.

Further reading: Alan Dundes, cd., The Evil Eye: A
Casebook (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1981); Amitav Ghosh. “Reflections of Envy in an Egyp-
tian Village." Ethnology 22 (1983): 211-233; Edward
Westermarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco , 2 vols. (New
York: University Books, 1968).

exegesis See tafsir.

Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn (1935- )

militant Shii religious leader and spokesman for the
Hizbullah organization in Lebanon
Shaykh Fadlallah was born in Najaf, Iraq, where
his Lebanese father was a Shii religious scholar. At
the Shii MADRASA in Najaf, he pursued advanced
Islamic studies in order to become one of the
Shii ULAMA. He also became politically involved
by opposing the growing influence of the Com-
munist Party in the Iraqi government during the
1960s. Among the most influential people in his
early career were Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim
Khui (d. 1992), one of the most prominent
scholars of Shii jurisprudence (f/qh) in Iraq, and
Shaykh Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980), a
politically active member of a prominent family
of Iraqi religious scholars. In 1966, Fadlallah was
appointed by Khui to serve the needs of Shia liv-
ing in the low-income neighborhoods of Beirut,
Lebanon.

During the devastating Lebanese civil war,
which lasted from 1975 to 1990, Shaykh Fadlal-
lah emerged as a leading community activist.
Inspired by the success of the Islamic revolution
in Iran of 1979, he played an instrumental role
in organizing Shii militants in the early 1980s
and became the head of Hizbullah in 1985. He

continues to be this organizations chief spokes-
man. Fadlallah holds strongly anti-Israeli and
anti-American views and combines them with an
ideology of Islamic revolution and political jihad.
During the 1980s, he was implicated in assassina-
tions and kidnappings in Lebanon, the bombings
of the U.S. embassy and of the U.S. and French
military headquarters in Beirut, and the Lebanese
Shii resistance to the Israeli occupation forces.
Consequently, both Israel and the United States
regard him as a terrorist leader, and there is some
suspicion that the United States was involved
in a failed assassination attempt against him in
1985. Although he has been supportive of Iranian
ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and religious hard-
liners in Tehran, he has broken with them over
their notions of Islamic government under the
absolute authority of a religious expert (faqih).
Instead, he has expressed support for a division
of political power among religious and secular
leaders. Much of his work in Lebanon has focused
on charitable organizations and social services,
which has won widespread support for Hizbul-
lah among the Lebanese Shia. He approves of the
participation of women in public life, and he has
also been a strong supporter of militant Palestin-
ian Islamist organizations, although not of Yassir

222

faith 223

Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. In
recent years, he has come to be regarded by many
as the “spiritual leader" of the Lebanese Shia, and
he appears to have shifted from radical militancy
to grassroots social and political activism.

Sec also communism; Israel; Shiism; terrorism.

Further reading: Talib Aziz, “Fadlallah and the Mak-
ing of the Marjaiyya." In The Most Learned of the Shia:
The Institution oj the Marja Taqlid, edited by Linda S.
Walbridge, 205-215 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001); Martin Kramer, “The Oracle of Hizbul-
lah: Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. In Spokesmen for
the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders in the Middle East,
edited by R. Scott Appleby, 83-181 (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1997).

faith (Arabic: iman, security)

In general. Western usage of faith is as a syn-
onym for religion — an organized system of beliefs
concerning a supreme being and that beings
relations with creation, especially with humans.
Thus, people speak of the “Christian faith" or the
“Islamic faith." The term also has a more specific
meaning — trust in God and his promise for salva-
tion. This concept is based on the books of the
Bible, and it achieved further development in the
histories of Jewish and Christian religious thought
in the Middle East, the Mediterranean basin, and
Europe. The ancient Hebrew aman (to be true or
trustworthy), related to the Arabic iman, is used
in the Old Testament to express the mutual com-
mitment between God and his chosen people as
it was embodied in their covenantal relationship.
In other words, the God of the Israelites promised
to remain faithful to his promise of blessings for
Israel as long as they maintained their love for him
and kept his commandments (for example, Deu-
teronomy 7:9). In times of difficulty, people were
expected to still hold fast to the hope that God
would strengthen them and come to their rescue.
For Christians, the focus of faith is on the figure
of Jesus as the son of God and how his death and

resurrection are believed to offer hope and salva-
tion for the faithful. It is seen as something that
comes as a gift from God and that people render
toward him in love.

The heart of Islamic faith is unconditional
belief in God's oneness; that he is universal,
eternal, all-knowing, all-seeing, compassionate;
and that he has no rivals or partners. From this
core belief follow others — that there will be a
resurrection and final judgment, and that God
communicates with humans through his angels,
prophets, and holy books (for example, Q 4: 1 36).
The Five Pillars, required of all able Muslims
(submitters), routinize these beliefs through
performance of the ritual actions of testifying
that God is one and Muhammad is his messen-
ger, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage.
The Quran suggests a close interrelationship
between faith and works (for example, Q 2: 1 77),
and this relationship is usually considered to be
a fundamental one in the religion. According
to the hadith, faith is sometimes regarded as
distinct from islam (submission), but it is also
seen as synonymous with it or as a facet of it.
In the well-known Hadith of Gabriel (cited in
the authoritative collections of Muslim, Bukhari,
and Ibn Hanbal), a stranger who later turns
out to be Gabriel, the angel of revelation, poses
questions to Muhammad about both islam and
iman. Muhammad responds by listing the Five
Pillars and the key elements of faith outlined
above, suggesting that although islam and iman
may differ, they arc closely connected neverthe-
less. Islam thus involves an inner belief, while
faith entails an outward expression. In one of
many passages concerning the faithful (mum in,
pi. muminun ), the Quran states that they are the
ones whose faith is strengthened when they hear
God's revelations and that they are those who
pray and perform acts of charity (Q 8:2-3). The
faithful are also those who have fear ( taqwa ) of
God and place their trust in him. Moreover, from
the quranic perspective, faith stands in clear
opposition to disbelief ( kufr ) in God and his rev-

^ 224 fana

elation and in opposition to the hypocrisy (nifaq)
of those who only pretend to be true believers
(for example, Q 3:90-91, 167; 4:60-61). Those
who believe and do good works are promised a
reward in the afterlife, while those who do not
believe will be punished.

As Islamic religious thought developed, Mus-
lim theologians and philosophers pursued the
discussion of faith in more depth. Among the
topics they debated, apart from that of faith and
action, were those of differences in degree of faith,
whether faith remains constant or increases and
decreases, and the relation of reason and faith.
The Shia, meanwhile, extended the content of
faith to include belief in the infallibility and moral
perfection of the Imams, and, among the Twelve-
Imam Shia, the rise of the messianic Imam Mahdi.
They also argued that JUSTICE was an attribute of
God. Sunnis disagreed and even went so far as to
label such beliefs heretical. In the modern era,
Sunni and Shii religious thinkers have sought
to demonstrate the compatibility of faith and
reason in order to defend Islam against secular
rationalism. At the same time, intensive religious
outreach (daavva) programs have been directed as
much at enhancing the faith of Muslims as at win-
ning new converts.

See also Allah; covenant; kafir; theology;
Twelve-Imam Shiism.

Further reading: Toshihiko Izutsu, Ethico-Religious
Concepts in the Koran (Montreal: McGill University
Press, 1966); Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the
Quran (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980).

fana See baqa and fana.

faqih See F/QH.

faqir See dervish.

Farabi, Abu Nasr al- (ca. 870-950)
prominent Muslim philosopher of the Middle Ages
known for his interpretations of Aristotle and
Neoplatonism

The first systematic thinker in Arab-lslamic phi-
losophy, al-Farabi penned the tradition's first
political treatise and was the first true logician
in Islamic history. The currents of Peripatetic-
Neoplatonic thought (Peripatetic docs not here
denote an exclusively Aristotelian legacy) he
set in motion reverberate in our own time with
Ismaili philosophy and in the renewed interest in
both the llluminationist tradition (for example,
Shihab al-Din Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi, d. 1191)
and the School of Isfahan (for example, Mullah
Sadra, d. 1640).

As his name suggests, al-Farabi was from the
district of Farab in Transoxiana, being of probable
Turkish or Turkoman origin. Little information is
available on his early life. He worked as a night
watchman in a garden in Damascus before mov-
ing to Baghdad. In the turbulence of 10th-century
Baghdad, al-Farabi mastered Arabic, becoming
conversant in a number of other languages as
well. He studied with Christian Aristotelians
of the Syriac tradition, considered among the
greatest logicians of his time. He soon surpassed
these exemplars by virtue of his treatment of the
entire corpus of Aristotelian logic. His educational
regimen included not only the various branches
of philosophy, but took in mathematics, physics,
astronomy, and music. Indeed, in addition to pen-
ning a handful of treatises on music, al-Farabi was
an accomplished musician.

One of the animating purposes of al-Farabis
writings on logic was the need to distinguish the
discipline of philosophical logic from the rules (or
logic) of grammar, the former akin to a universal
grammar that provides the rules necessary for
reasoning in any language, while the latter relies
on rules generated by convention and is thus
relative to a particular language. In his view, the
logical and grammatical “sciences ' complement
each other. Logic likewise pertains to the arts

Farabi, Abu Nasr al- 225

(poetics), politics, religion, and jurisprudence,
as it lays down the rules of reasoning peculiar to
these respective domains (hence, there are types
of rationality and different modes of discourse and
argumentation).

Al-Farabi's cosmological and metaphysical
doctrines are the foundations upon which he
builds — like Plato (d. ca. 347 B.C.E.) — the political
philosophy explicated in his books The Virtuous
City (al-Madina al-fadila) and the Civil Polity (al-
Siyasa al -modern iyy a). He uses a Neoplatonic ema-
nationist theory crafted within the structure of
Ptolemaic cosmology to account for God's power
of creation. However, God, or the First Being ( al -
awwal ), does not, like “the One" of the ancient
philosopher Plotinus (d. 270 C.E.), utterly tran-
scend being and thought. Rather, it is conceived
largely along the lines of Aristotle’s Unmoved
Mover, albeit with emanationist properties. God's
principal activity is, as it were, intellectual, “echo-
ing Aristotle's conception of God's activity as
‘thinking of thinking' (ndcsis nocscos). It is God's
intellectual activity which underlies God's role
as the creator of the universe" (Black, 189). In
effect, al-Farabi’s First Being cleverly combines a
Neoplatonic metaphysics of emanation, Aristotle's
Unmoved Mover, and the Quranic conception of
God. It is clever insofar as it attempts to fuse the
absolute transcendence and unity (tawhid) of God
with a rational account of the world's creation,
albeit one at odds with the doctrine of creation
from nothing (ex nihilo).

Al-Farabi's political philosophy is more
straightforwardly Platonic, outlining a grada-
tion of different kinds of polities at the apex of
which is the ideal city dedicated to good and
happiness. For al-Farabi, philosophy provides us
with the highest form of knowledge or wisdom
(hikma). But philosophy must endeavor to be
practical. For example, the ruler(s) of the ideal
polity arduously and artfully unites the arts and
sciences of philosophy and prophecy, or political
and religious leadership. In addition, the polity
aims at realizing the virtues and happiness of its

citizens, as the best form of life is within a prop-
erly ruled polis.

Al-Farabi valued philosophy as the highest
form of knowledge, owing in part to its reliance
on “scientific demonstration," whereas he con-
fined THEOLOGY to “imaginative representations,”
resorting to the rational methods of rhetoric and
dialectic. However rational such methods may
be, they are not on par with the demonstrative
method of philosophy. Moreover, the “acquired
intellect" of the philosopher is a different medium
from the “imaginative faculty" of the prophet, for
prophetic revelations are the truths of philosophy
put in understandable form for commoners. The
rhetorical, dialectical, and political arts, in other
words, permit wisdom to be pul in a commu-
nicative form congenial to the masses. After all,
philosophers are few and far between, but their
wisdom and understanding should and can ben-
efit everyone.

Deemed the “second teacher" (after Aristotle,
d. 322 B.C.E.) and the “second master" (after Abu
Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, d. ca. 866 C.E.),
al-Farabi was a great synthesizer of philosophi-
cal and theological traditions. Renowned for an
ascetic demeanor, near the end of his life he
returned to Aleppo in Syria following a trip to
Egypt. There he was associated with Sayf al-Dawla
(918-967), a prince known for his generous
patronage of the arts. At 80 years of age, he died
in Aleppo. Al-Farabi's philosophy left a decisive
impression on Ibn Sina (d. 1037) and was deeply
cherished by Islamic and Jewish philosophers,
affecting even the Latin Scholasticism of 13th-
century Europe. The great Muslim theologian
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) found much to
contend with in the subsequent development of
Islamic Neoplatonism.

See also creation; politics and Islam.

Patrick S. O'Donnell

Further reading: Deborah L. Black, “Al-Farabi.” In
History of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Seyyed H ossein
Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 178-197 (London: Routledge,

u ^> 226 Faraizi movement

1996); Majid Fakhry. Al-Farabi: Founder of Islamic Neo-
platonism (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002); Oliver Leaman,
An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy. 2d ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Ian
Richard Netton, Al-Farabi and His School (London:
Routledge, 1992).

Faraizi movement (Persian spelling;
Arabic, Faraidi movement)

The Faraizis were a religious renewal and anti-
British protest movement that arose in the Bengal
region of India in the early 19th century. Their
name is based on the Arabic for "religious duties"
(fa raid), which emphasizes their advocacy of a
return to the core requirements of Islamic prac-
tice. The movements founder was Hajji Shariat
Allah (ca. 1781-1840), who performed the HAJJ
from eastern Bengal in his late teens and resided
in Mecca for about 20 years. It is likely that he
was influenced by Wahhabism and other revivalist
Islamic ideas while in residence there, for it was
after his return to Bengal from Arabia in the early
1800s that he launched the movement. From the
1760s, Bengal had been under the control of the
English East India Company, whose economic
and agricultural policies were having devastating
effects on the indigenous textile industry and the
livelihood of the region's farmers. The local popu-
lation, which was mostly Muslim, had grown res-
tive under the British administrations exploitative
land and taxation policies that favored the British
and Hindu landholders and speculators. Bengali
Muslims were therefore receptive to the formation
of a resistance movement.

Shariat Allah told Bengali Muslims to return to
what he considered to be the true Islamic practices
and to give up Shii and Sufi saint worship and
certain marriage and funerary customs. Further-
more, he taught that Muslims should not perform
communal prayers as long as they did not have a
legitimate Muslim ruler governing them. At the
same time, he supported landless Bengali peas-
ants in their protests against wealthy landlords

by urging them to reject forced labor and to not
pay their taxes. With its reformist and egalitarian
message, the Faraizi movement he launched was
then able to establish a base of popular support
in rural eastern Bengal, particularly under the
leadership of Shariat Allah's son, Dudu Miyan
(1819-63). The latter even declared India to be a
dar al-harb (house of war) as long as it was ruled
by non-Muslims such as the British and came into
open clashes with British authorities. Landlords
and the British rallied to oppose the movement
and accused Shariat Allah and his son of trying
to create their own kingdom. The Faraizis were
held in check by their opponents, and they lost
support among many Muslims because of their
rejection of popular religious practices and their
condemnation of Muslims who did not agree
with Faraizi doctrines. With the imprisonment of
Dudu Miyan at the time of the great 1857 uprising
against British rule, the Faraizi movement ceased
to be politically active. Nevertheless, it continued
to exist as a religious revival movement until the
early 20th century.

See also Bangladesh; colonialism; dar al-Islam

AND DAR AL-HARB; RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Further reading: Nurul H. Choudhury, Peasant Radi-
calism in 1 9th Century Bengal: The Faraizi, Indigo, and
Pabna Movements (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangla-
desh. 2001); Muin-ud-Din Ahaind Khan, History of
the Faraidi Movement in Bengal, 1818-1906 (Karachi:
Pakistan Historical Society, 1965).

Farrakhan, Louis (1933- ) controversial

African-American leader of the Nation of Islam from
1977

Born Louis Eugene Walcott, the son of a domes-
tic worker and immigrant, Farrakhan grew up in
Boston. As a youth, Farrakhan played the violin,
excelled academically in high school, and became
actively Episcopalian. In 1955, during a trip to
Chicago for a musical performance, Farrakhan
attended one of the Nation of Islam's conven-

fasting 227

tions. Greatly influenced by the founder, Elijah
Muhammad's, teachings, Farrakhan put his musi-
cal interests aside and became an active member
of the nation, changing his name to Louis X,
which later became Louis Haleem Abdul Far-
rakhan. Following Elijah Muhammad's death in
1975, his son, Wallace Deen Muhammad, began
leading the nation and shifted away from Elijah's
teachings, declaring his father’s extreme views rac-
ist. Wishing to return to Elijahs original message,
Farrakhan formed a competing organization in
1977, which is among several other groups that
claim the name Nation of Islam.

Farrakhan has caught public attention since
the mid-1980s for allegedly making anti-Semitic
remarks, accusations that Farrakhan denies,
claiming that the media is biased. Such allega-
tions aside, Farrakhan’s leadership of the nation
has led to many positive reforms. Farrakhan has
diminished the number of drug dealers in public
housing projects, has permitted women to become
public leaders in the nation, and has played a key
role in the development of Islam in America. He
has also built MOSQUES in several U.S. cities. Far-
rakhan has traveled to various parts of the Middle
East and North Africa, allegedly attacking the U.S.
government and Jewish groups during his trips
abroad. In 1999, claiming to have a near-death
experience with prostate cancer, Farrakhan began
preaching racial and religious unity. Farrakhan
appears widely on television and speaks on radio.
He and his wife, Khadijah (Betsy), have 1 1 chil-
dren, several of whom are actively involved in the
nation.

See also African Americans, Islam among.

Mehnaz Sahibzada

Further reading: Robert Dannin, Black Pilgrimage to
Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Mat-
tias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis
Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Durham. N.C.:
Duke University Press, 1996); Eric C. Lincoln. The
Black Muslims in America (Trenton. N.J.: Africa World

Press. 1994); Jane I. Smith, Islam in America (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999).

Farsi See Persian language and literature.

fasting (Arabic: sawm or siyam)

The primary fast in Islam, and one of its Five Pil-
lars, takes place during the month of Ramadan,
when observant Muslims refrain from eating,
drinking any liquids, smoking, or having sexual
intercourse during daylight hours. The beginning
and end of the fast each day are marked by calls
to prayer: before dawn, when a white string can
be distinguished from a black one, and again at
sunset. Muslims generally break their fast with a
drink of thick fruit juice and a date, after the cus-
tom of Muhammad (d. 632). Some will then pray
before a large meal ( futur ), consisting of dishes
special to the month, is served. These meals arc
occasions for families to gather and for neigh-
bors and friends to visit one another. Indeed, it
is not unusual for large quantities of food to be
consumed at night during Ramadan, despite the
daylight fasting requirements. The end of the
month and of the fast is marked by the Id AL-Fitr,
or “feast of fast-breaking.''

Muslims look to the quranic chapter “The
Cow" (Q 2:183) as the injunction from God
to fast. It reads, “O you who believe! Fasting
is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for
those before you, so that you may guard against
evil." Although children often participate for a
few hours a day or a few days in the month, all
Muslims who have reached puberty are expected
to fast. Temporary exceptions arc made for those
who are in poor health, for those who are travel-
ing, or for menstruating and pregnant women,
with the idea that these missed fast days will be
made up at a later date.

Outside the month of Ramadan, fasting is also
observed on the day before the Id al-Adha, which
marks the end of the formal HAJJ season. Some

‘ CssS3 228 fate

Muslims, mostly Shia, also fast on Tuesdays and
Thursdays throughout the year, but especially
during the months of Shaaban and Rajab.

In addition to fulfilling a religious require-
ment, fasting is associated with a variety of other
benefits. For some, it presents an opportunity to
focus on ones spiritual life. Indeed, many Sufis are
known to include extended fasts in their religious
practice. For others, the feelings of hunger are an
important reminder of the plight of less fortunate
members of the community. For still others, fast-
ing may be performed as an act of expiation for a
broken promise. Finally, fasting is seen as provid-
ing beneficial health effects.

See also asceticism; dietary laws; feasting;
FOOD AND DRINK.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Hammudah Abdalati. Islam in Focus
(Indianapolis: Islamic Trust Publications. 1996); Marjo
Buitelaar, Fasting and Feasting in Morocco: Women's Par-
ticipation in Ramadan (Oxford: Berg, 1993).

fate

Fate is a power or force that is thought to deter-
mine in advance what happens in the world, par-
ticularly to human beings. It is opposed to pure
accident or chance and is often equated with the
idea of fortune or destiny in this world and in the
AFTERLIFE. Fatalism is a worldview that upholds
the belief that all events are predetermined and
that it is useless for anyone to try to change them.
In ancient Mesopotamia, fate was believed to be in
the hands of the gods, whom human beings were
created to serve. In ancient Greece, it was personi-
fied in the form of three women or was said to be
something controlled by the god Zeus. Christian
thinkers reinterpreted ancient beliefs about fate
by associating it with Divine Providence, which
they qualified by also asserting a human capac-
ity for choosing between good and evil. Christian
theology has struggled, therefore, with reconciling
belief in God's omnipotence with human free will.

Although Islam is often represented as a
fatalistic religion, two different trends of thought
developed within the Muslim community in
regard to the issue of Gods predetermination of
events and human freedom. The competing Mus-
lim theological discussions of this topic all quote
quranic verses to support the positions they have
taken. Speaking of Gods incomparable majesty
and power, the Quran states, “God guides to
truth whom he wills and leads astray whom he
wills” (Q 14:4), and “When he decrees a thing,
he says to it *Be* and it is” (for example, Q 2:1 17).
Verses such as these have been used by those
who argued that God determines all that hap-
pens to people, whether good or evil. This view
is also reflected in the popular Arabic expression,
“/n sha Allah" (If God wills it so), which people
often say when planning a future activity. In a
similar vein, the Quran declares, “Nothing will
happen to us except what God has written for us”
(Q 9:51), implying that human destiny has been
preordained in a divine book or tablet. Moreover,
the Quran states that all created things have been
assigned a fixed term of existence (ajal). Even a
persons death was thought to be predetermined
(see Q 6:2, 39:42, 40:68). Gods power to deter-
mine everything that happens became a formal
aspect of Sunni theology, especially in the Ashari
School, and it had the approval of early Muslim
rulers, who sought to protect their own power by
arguing that it was God-given, despite their own
moral failures as Muslims.

Nonfatalist advocates of free will sought to
give human beings more responsibility in decid-
ing how to conduct their lives and shape their
own destinies. They pointed to the many verses
in the Quran that spoke of the Final Judgment
and maintained that God's judgment would be
just only if humans were righteous or sinful by
choice rather than by fate. According to one such
verse, "Truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills,
let him believe, and whoever wills, let him dis-
believe. Indeed, we have prepared a Fire for the
disbelievers . . . and for those who believe and do

Fatiha 229

good works, we will not let go astray the reward
of those who do beautiful things" (Q 18:29-30).
al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 728), remembered in part
for being an early free will advocate, tried unsuc-
cessfully to explain to the Umayyad caliph Abd
al-Malik (r. 685-705) the correctness of this
belief. In developing his argument, he maintained
that God commanded only the good and that evil
was caused by humans or Satan. He and others
like him in Iraq, Syria, Arabia, and Yemen were
called the Qadariyya (the party favoring human
self-determination). This early trend in Islamic
religious thought developed into the Mutazili tra-
dition of Islamic theology and contributed signifi-
cantly to the formation of the rationalist school of
thought in Shii theology, as opposed to the Ashari
school of the Sunnis.

Since the 19th century, Orientalists, missionar-
ies, and travelers from Europe and North America
have attributed fatalistic beliefs to ordinary Mus-
lims, particularly in regard to their explanations
of illness and misfortune. Some have reported that
critical medical care was refused out of a belief that
the fate of the patient was in Gods hands. However,
Muslims have indeed sought out remedies and cures
for illnesses when they were available, and fatalistic
acceptance is only one option, used when hope is
lost. This is true even where conservative prede-
termine Islamic doctrines prevail, such as among
Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. One should remember
that medicine was one of the foremost applied
sciences in medieval Islamicatc civilization. In a
different regard, modern Islamic reformers in many
Muslim lands have been incorporating notions of
free will into their thinking, further loosening the
hold of the Ashari brand of predeterminism and
promoting progressive change among Muslims.

See also Allah; Judgment Day; Mutazili
School.

Further reading: Fazlur Rahman. Major Themes of
the Quran (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1989);
Helmer Ringgren. Studies in Arabian Fatalism (Uppsala:
Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1955); W. Montgomery

Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edin-
burgh: University of Edinburgh Press. 1973).

Fatiha (Arabic: The Opening, or the
Opening of the Book)

The Fatiha is the first of the Quran’s 114 chapters.
It is the one most widely memorized by Muslims
and is used in their worship and daily lile. Unlike
most of the other chapters, which have mixed
contents such as apocalyptic visions, sermons,
dialogues, stories, commandments, and prayers,
the Fatiha is strictly a verbal prayer. It consists of
seven verses:

1. In the name of God, the merciful, the com-
passionate.

2. Praise be to God, the lord of the worlds (or
beings),

3. The merciful, the compassionate,

4. Master of the Day of Judgment.

5. It is you whom we worship, and it is you to
whom we turn for help.

6. Guide us on the straight path,

7. The path of those on whom you have
bestowed your blessing, and not of those
who have incurred your anger and have
gone astray.

Muslim and non-Muslim scholars generally
agree that this chapter dates to the time when
Muhammad was still living in Mecca (ca. 619),
although it was probably not widely used until
the Islamic religion became more organized after
the Hijra to Medina in 622. Some have argued
that it is comparable to the Jewish Shema prayer
(Deut. 6:4-9) and the Lord’s Prayer (Mt. 6:9-13)
in Christianity and that it was probably originally
intended for use in worship. Indeed, since as early
as the seventh century, it has been a required part
of the five daily ritual prayers (salat), the weekly
communal prayers, and the two annual Id prayers
(Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha). Muslim jurists have
ruled that performance of a salat is invalid if
recitation of the Fatiha is omitted. The fact that

230 Fatima

practicing Muslims around the world have con-
sistently memorized and recited it (usually in
Arabic) for centuries, regardless of their ethnic
or religious outlook, means that it has become an
identifying characteristic of membership in the
wider Muslim community (i/mma).

According to the hadith and Quran commen-
taries, the Fatiha is “the mother (essence) of the
Quran” and its “greatest chapter.” One widely cir-
culated hadith declares, “God has revealed noth-
ing like [ it 1 in the Torah and the Gospel." Aside
from using it in their daily prayers, Muslims also
recite it during birth rites, weddings, and funer-
als, and to inaugurate new buildings, businesses,
and formal gatherings. Muslims in northern India
have developed a funerary ritual called the Fatiha,
which involves reciting the chapter and making
food offerings on behalf of the dead in a sacral-
ized room of the house. The page of the Quran
on which the Fatiha is written has been the most
beautifully decorated page in Quran manuscripts
and printed editions. It is often displayed in
homes, businesses, and mosques as an expression
of religiosity and as a means of ensuring Gods
blessing for those places.

See also AMULETS AND TALISMANS; BASMALA ;
FUNERARY RITUALS.

Further reading: Laleh Bakhtiyar, Encyclopedia of
Islamic Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chi-
cago: ABC International Group. 1996); S. D. Goitein,
“Prayer in Islam.” In Studies in Islamic History and
Institutions , edited by S. D. Goitein 73-89 (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1966); Moshe Piamenta, Islam in Everyday Arabic
Speech (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979).

Fatima (ca. 605-633) daughter of Muhammad,
wife of AH, and mother of Shii Imams, the Shia regard
her as a saint, the only woman they count among the
five “pure” members of the Prophet's household
Fatima was the youngest daughter born to Muham-
mad and his wife Khadija. Early historical sources
provide few details about her, except to indicate

that she married Muhammad's cousin Ali ibn Abi
Talib (d. 661) shortly after the Hijra to Medina,
when she was about 18 years old. Like other Mus-
lim families at that time, they lived in poverty until
more lands and property were acquired by the
early community as a result of the early conquests
under Muhammad's leadership. She bore Ali two
sons who lived to adulthood: Hasan (624-669)
and Husayn (626-680). Accounts say that in his
last days, Muhammad drew Ali, Fatima, and their
two sons together under his cloak and said, “God
wishes to remove impurity from you, O People of
the House [ahl al-bayt), and to thoroughly purify
you" (Q 33:33). This confirmed the holy status of
all five members of Muhammad's household, and
as a result of this incident they are also known as
the People of the Cloak. Fatima also gave birth to
two daughters, Umm Kulthum and Zaynab. When
Muhammad was on his deathbed in 632, Fatima
and Ali tended to him, while the leadership of
the community was being decided elsewhere by
Muhammad's associates Abu Bakr (d. 634), Umar
ibn al-Khattab (d. 644), and their allies. Thus, she
was implicated in the events that led to the split
between the Sunni and Shii branches of Islam.
Fatima died at a young age, within a year of her
father. Accounts differ as to where she was buried.
Some say she was buried in Baqi cemetery, near
Muhammad's house; others say she was buried on
the grounds of his MOSQUE.

Fatima is greatly revered by Muslims, especially
the Shia. Among the other names by which she is
known arc al-Zahra, “the Radiant," al-Mubaraka,
“the Blessed," and al-Tahira, “the Pure.” Accord-
ing to medieval Shii hagiographies, her marriage
with Ali was celebrated in heaven and on Earth,
and all the Shii imams have descended from this
couple. It is also said that because of her purity,
she did not menstruate like other women, and her
pregnancies lasted only nine hours. Moreover, she
will be the first to enter paradise after the Resur-
rection, and, like Mary in Catholic Christianity,
she will intercede for those who honor her and
her offspring and descendants, the Imams. Indeed,

Fatimid dynasty 231

in Shii literature, Fatima is compared to Mary
the mother of JESUS because of the violent deaths
suffered by each of their sons. Although Fatimas
name is not mentioned in the Quran, Shii com-
mentaries point out passages they believe contain
hidden references to her, such as Q 55:19, where
the two oceans of water that flow together arc
interpreted as the reunion of Ali and Fatima after
a dispute. In popular Islamic practice, an image of
an outstretched hand, called the Hand of Fatima,
is used as an amulet to deflect the evil eye, and the
Shia display it in Ashura processions in India.

During the 1970s, Fatima gained a modern
importance through the lectures and writings of
the Iranian intellectual Ali Shariati (d. 1977),
who portrayed her as a symbol of the total
woman — daughter, wife, mother, freedom fighter,
and defender of the oppressed. Although Fatima
was likened to the Virgin Mary in Islamic tradi-
tion, she should not be confused with Our Lady of
Fatima, the name given to the apparitions of Mary
near the town of Fatima in Portugal in 1917.

See also imam; Shiism; women.

Further reading: Marcia K. Hermensen, “Fatimeh as
a Role Model in the Works of Ali Shariati." In Women
and Revolution in Iran, edited by Guity Nashat, 87-96
(Boulder, Colo.: Wcstvicw Press, 1983); Jane Dammcn
McAuliffe, “Chosen of All Women: Mary and Fatima in
Quranic Exegesis." Islamochristiana 7 (1981): 19-28;
Susan Sered, “Rachel, Mary, and Fatima." Cultural
Anthropology 6, no. 2 (1991): 131-146.

Fatimid dynasty (909-1171)

The Fatimids were a medieval Ismaili Shii dynasty
that ruled over a band of territory that stretched
from Tunisia in North Africa to Egypt, the Red Sea
region (including Mecca and Medina), Palestine,
and Syria. They rivaled the Sunni dynasties of the
Abbasids in Iraq (750-1258) and the Umayyads
of Andalusia (756-1009), both of which they
unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow. Their first
capital was Mahdiyya, on the Tunisian coast, but

in 969, they shifted eastward and founded a new
capital in Egypt, next to the flourishing commer-
cial city of Fustat. The name they gave to their
new royal city was Cairo (Qahira, “conqueror").
The name of the dynasty itself was derived from
that of Muhammad's daughter Fatima (d. 633),
and they traced their lineage to the Prophets
household through the seventh Imam, Ismail (d.
ca. 762), the son of Jaafar AL-SADIQ, the sixth Shii
Imam. The first Fatimid Imam or CALIPH was Abd
Allah (r. 909-934), who was considered to be the
Mahdi, the promised deliverer sent by God. Sun-
nis did not accept this claim and instead remem-
bered him by the derogatory name of Ubayd
Allah, “little servant of God.”

The Fatimids sponsored an active program
of religious outreach and propaganda (daawa)
throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and
northwest India to promote their cause but failed
to win large numbers of followers, even in Egypt.
Nonetheless, Egypt prospered for nearly a cen-
tury under Fatimid rule. Ismailis were able to
practice their tradition of Islam in public, while
other Muslims and non-Muslims enjoyed relative
tolerance. Jews and Christians as well as Sunni
Muslims held high positions in government. The
famed Gcniza documents, a collection of medi-
eval writings recovered from Cairo's Ben Ezra
synagogue, have yielded valuable details about the
daily life of Jews and their social and economic
relations with non-Jews at this time. Intellectual
life also thrived, in part a result of Ismaili efforts
to articulate their messianic doctrines and refute
Sunni attacks. Important works on philosophy,
religion, history, biography, and the sciences were
composed and collected in private libraries. The
Fatimid palace alone had a House of Knowledge
that contained a reading room, a meeting place for
scholars, and a library containing several hundred
thousand scholarly books. Rulers also supported
the formation of a distinct tradition of Ismaili reli-
gious law, which was explained in public sessions
after Friday prayer at al-Azhar and other major
mosques in the capital.

232 Fatimid dynasty

The mosque ofal-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (early 11th century), Cairo, Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

The Fatimid dynasty's most memorable ruler
was the caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996-
1021), who built a monumental mosque and
gateways in Cairo and founded the House of
Knowledge. In 1009, however, he destroyed the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the burial place of
Jesus, which contributed to the launching of the
First Crusade at the end of the century. Al-Hakim
has also been charged with abusing his power by
arbitrarily ordering the execution of members
of his court, confining women to their homes,
persecuting Christians, Jews, and Sunni Muslims,
banning popular recreational activities, having
Cairo's dogs killed because their barking annoyed
him, and outlawing the game of chess. Al-Hakim

died under mysterious circumstances in 1021, but
Ismaili claims about his divinity gave rise to the
Druze religion in Syria. Later, after 1094, a schism
in the dynasty led to the creation of the two major
branches of the Ismaili Shia, the Mustalis and the
Nizaris. The Yemeni and Indian Bohra Ismailis
trace their origins to the first of these branches;
the latter is associated with the sect known in the
West as the Assassins and the modern-day Ac.a
Khan Ismailis. The Fatimid dynasty suffered from
a number of damaging internal and external crises,
including natural catastrophes, dynastic disputes,
ethnic and religious factionalism, opposition from
powerful Sunni rulers in Syria and Iraq, and the
invasion of the first crusaders from Europe in

Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saud 233

1096. In 1171, the last Fatimid caliph, al-Adid,
was overthrown by a Kurdish commander, S A LA-
DIN (1174-93), who became the SULTAN of Egypt
and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty (1174-
1250). This Sunni dynasty effectively put an end
to Ismaili influence in Egypt.

See also Abbasid Caliphate; Christianity and
Islam; Ismaili Shiism; Umayyad Caliphate.

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, A Short History of the
Ismailis (Princeton, N.J.: Marcus Wiener Publishers,
1998); Heinz Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise
of the Fatimids. Translated by Michael Bonner (Leiden
and New York: E.J. Brill, 1996).

fatwa

Most legal systems have a tradition that allows
experts to state their opinions with respect to
questions of law. In Islamic law, one way this is
done is by issuing a fatwa, which is an opinion
based on knowledge of the Quran and the sunna
of Muhammad. It is given orally or in writing in
response to a question asked by a man or woman.
The legal authority who answers the question is
called a MUFTI, an author of fatwas. He should be
knowledgeable in the sacred scriptures of Islam
and the SHARIA, though he is not required to follow
the rulings of a specific Islamic legal school (madh-
hab). The fatwa is different from a decision made
in a court of law by a judge ( qadi ) because it does
not require review of evidence and testimony from
two parties in the context of a legal hearing or trial.
Rather, it is an informed response to a question
that may concern, for example, a matter of wor-
ship, marriage and divorce, inheritance, business
and finance, crime, apostasy, or daily behavior.
Thus, a person might request a fatwa for some-
thing as seemingly trivial as to whether one can
brush his teeth in the daytime during the Ramadan
fast (which might invalidate the fast for that day),
or as important as to whether a Muslim can live
in a country ruled by non-Muslims (which might
require a jihad). The fatwa is only advisory, which

is underscored by the phrase “and God knows
best" ( Allah aalam) that often occurs at its conclu-
sion. Indeed, fatwas may contradict each other,
in which case the questioners are left to decide
for themselves. Although many are given orally,
those that are issued by a powerful or influential
mufti may be written, collected, and published. In
the past, most fatwas addressed questions coming
from local Muslim communities, and this is still
often the case, as it is among Muslims living in
the United States and Europe. Since the introduc-
tion of the modern print and electronic media,
however, fatwas can reach a global audience.
Many leading Islamic organizations and religious
authorities now have Internet sites where people
can submit questions, receive advisory opinions,
and review opinions given in answer to questions
asked previously by others online.

See also fiqh ; ijriHAD ; Rushdie, Salman.

Further reading: Muhammad Khalid Masud, Brinkley
Messick, and David S. Powers, Islamic Legal Interpre-
tation: Muftis and Their Fatwas (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1996); Rudolph Peters, Islam
and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History
(The Hague: Mouton, 1979).

Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saud (King
Feisal) (1906-1975) king of Saadi Arabia from
1964 to 1975 who inaugurated a significant program
of economic, governmental, and social modernization
and strove to unite Muslims against the spread of
socialism and communism during the cold war era
Faysal was the fourth son of Saudi Arabia's first
king, Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (r. 1926-53) and a
direct descendant on his mothers side of Muham-
mad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), the founder
of the puritanical Wahhabi movement. Faysal
was himself a religiously minded man, no doubt
shaped by his early upbringing in the household
of his maternal grandfather, a leading Wah-
habi authority. At the age of 14, he was the first
member of the Saudi family to visit England and

234 feasting

Europe and was named foreign minister after his
return in 1919. Faysal played an active role in the
Saudi conquest of the Arabian Peninsula in the
1920s and 1930s and served as governor of the
Hijaz, the western part of Arabia where Mecca
and Medina are located. At the end of World
War II, he represented Saudi Arabia at the United
Nations. In 1953, he was named the country's
crown prince and foreign minister and contended
with his brother King Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz for the
upper hand in Saudi affairs. With the help of the
ulama, he successfully forced Saud to step down
from the throne, and he became the kingdom's
third monarch in 1964.

Saudi Arabia experienced a great increase in
OIL revenues during Faysal's reign. This helped to
finance a far-reaching program of modernization.
He expanded the state bureaucracy and centralized
planning and decision making in the hands of the
royal family. Faysal made substantial improvements
in the country's roads, communications, electrical
supply, and social services. He also modernized the
country's educational system, opening new uni-
versities and vocational centers in the kingdom's
major cities and towns. With the encouragement
of his wife, Iffat, he opened more than 100 schools
for girls, despite opposition from religious and
social conservatives. Faysal was a staunch oppo-
nent of Egypt’s Arab nationalist leader, Jamal Abd
AL-Nasir (r. 1954-70) and sought to unite Muslim
nations against the influence of the Soviet Union
and the spread of Arab socialism. He also par-
ticipated, with some reluctance, in the oil embargo
against the United States because of its support
for Israel in the October 1973 Arab-lsraeli war. In
1975, he was assassinated by a nephew and was
succeeded by his brother, Crown Prince Khalid ibn
Abd al-Aziz (r. 1975-82). A major research center
for Islamic studies in Riyadh and a university
in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia have been
named in his honor.

See also Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud; Arab-Israeli
conflicts; communism; Organization of the
Islamic Conference; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Madawi al-Rasheed, A History of
Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002); Nadav Safran, Saudi Arabia: The Ceaseless Quest
for Security (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1985).

feasting

Feasting is a celebratory cultural activity that
involves the sharing of quantities of food and
drink by families, social groups and classes, and
entire communities. It is known to many soci-
eties — tribal, agricultural, and industrial — and
religions. As Caroline Walker Bynum has noted,
feasting and fasting often link members of com-
munities to each other and to the rhythms of
nature, with its times of plenty and times of fam-
ine and drought (Bynum, 34). Periods of feasting
and fasting tend to complement each other, even
if they do not always coincide with the seasonal
patterns of nature.

There are two major times of feasting recog-
nized in Islam. One is Id al-Adha, the Feast of
Sacrifice, a three- to four-day holiday that com-
memorates the sacrifice of Abraham and the con-
clusion of the hajj rites in Mecca. The other is Id
AL-Fitr, the Breakfast Feast, a three- to four-day
holiday that marks the end of the month-long
Ramadan fast. These holidays are celebrated by
Muslims around the world; they involve visiting
among families, neighbors, and friends and the
preparation of savory foods and desserts. Families
often schedule engagements and weddings dur-
ing Id holidays in order to keep overall expenses
down, because people have more free time to
attend, and because BARAKA (divine blessing) is
believed to be especially strong at such times of
the year. Families also visit cemeteries on these
days to donate food to the poor on behalf of the
souls of deceased loved ones. The idea of feast-
ing, moreover, has been incorporated into Islamic
visions of the afterlife. In paradise, the blessed
are rewarded with heavenly dishes and beverages,
which are served endlessly in luxurious settings.

fedayeen 235

The mawlid of the prophet Muhammad, which
commemorates the days of his birth and death,
is observed in many Muslim countries with the
enjoyment of nuts and sweets (especially in the
Middle East) or cooked stews and milk and rice
dishes (in India). The anniversaries of the birth
or death of other Muslim saints provide occa-
sions for feasting in many Muslim communi-
ties, especially for pilgrims who visit the saints'
shrines, where they often share food with each
other, even if they are total strangers. At shrines
in South Asia, such as that of Muin al-Din Chishti
(d. 1236) in Ajmer, specially blessed food is
cooked and distributed to pilgrims and the poor
from community kitchens ( langar khanas) affili-
ated with the shrines.

The Shia hold feasts in honor of the birth-
days of their Imams and women descended from
Muhammad, such as Fatima and her daughter
Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi Talib. For many of the
Shia, the most important feast day is that of Gha-
dir Khumm (observed shortly after Id al-Adha),
which celebrates Muhammad's designation of Ali
as his successor in 630. Even with the Ashura
rites of the month of Muharram, a time of sad-
ness and fasting for the devoted, subdued feast-
ing occurs in Iraqi and Iranian homes, where
people gather to hold readings of lamentations
in honor of the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali
and his followers at Karbala in 680. For many
South Asian Muslims, Shab-i Barat (the night of
commission), which occurs in the middle of the
month of Shaban, before Ramadan, is another
important time of feasting. At that time, people
share dishes consisting of stews, curries, and
sweets with friends and relatives in remembrance
of the dead.

Most Muslim feasts are set according to the
Islamic lunar calendar, which means that they
do not coincide with the seasons of the solar year
(spring, summer, fall, winter). For example, if Id
al-Adha falls on June 23 one year, the next year
it will come 11 days earlier, on June 14, and so
on from one solar year to the next. Some Mus-

lim mawlid celebrations, however, are observed
according to the solar calendar. For example,
that of Ahmad al-Badawi of Tanta, Egypt, occurs
annually at the time of the fall harvest, when food
is plentiful. Ancient spring fertility and first fruits
feasts occur in many Muslim countries, although
they are not usually recognized as Islamic holidays
per se. Navruz is the spring holiday most widely
observed by Iranians and others living in eastern
Islamicate lands. In Egypt, the spring holiday is
called Shamm al-Nasim (smelling the breeze). It
occurs on the Monday after the Coptic Christian
Easter and involves picnics in the countryside and
city parks or family meals at home.

All Muslims engage in feasting at important
moments in the human life cycle. These occur
when a child is born, when a boy is circumcised,
when a couple is engaged and married, and when
a person dies. Such occasions are usually not
restricted to the nuclear family but often involve
many others — extended family, neighbors, and
friends. Non-Muslims may also participate in these
celebrations. Other feasts may be held when some-
one recovers from an illness or returns home safely
from a long journey or pilgrimage to Mecca.

Sec also birth rites; circumcision; food and
drink; funerary rituals; Shiism.

Further reading: Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast
and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medi-
eval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1987); Elizabeth Fernea, Guests of the Sheik: An Eth-
nography of an Iraqi Village (1965. Reprint, New York:
Anchor Books, 1989), 116-125; John Kennedy, ed.,
Nubian Ceremonial Life: Studies in Islamic Syncretism
and Cultural Change (Berkeley and Cairo: University
of California Press and American University in Cairo
Press, 1978); Jafar Sharif, Islam in India , or the Qanun-i
Islam: The Customs of the Musalmans of India. Translated
by G. A. Herklots (1832. Reprint, Delhi: Low Price
Publications. 1997), 151-217.

fedayeen See fidai.

‘ CssS3 236 Federation of Islamic Associations

Federation of Islamic Associations

(acronym: FIA)

One of the first organizations created to link dif-
ferent Muslim groups in North America was the
Federation of Islamic Associations. It started in
1952 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, under the name of
the International Muslim Society. Its membership
consisted mostly of people of Syrian and Lebanese
descent living in the Northeast and Midwest. The
mosques represented by its early members were
those of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Dearborn, Michigan,
Michigan City, Indiana, and Quincy, Massachu-
setts. The group’s purpose was to promote Muslim
self-awareness and to help Muslims adapt to life in
the United States and Canada. At its third annual
meeting in Chicago in 1954, the groups name
was changed to Federation of Islamic Associa-
tions. During that year, it appealed to the Ameri-
can president, Dwight Eisenhower (r. 1952-60),
for recognition of Islam as a religion by the U.S.
armed forces. As it grew, the FIA offered informa-
tion about Islam to non-Muslims, organized social
events where Muslim youths could meet future
spouses, monitored media coverage of Islam and
Middle Eastern politics, and established full-time
accredited schools for Muslims. The main publica-
tion of the FIA was the Muslim Star. In the 1960s
and 1970s, it worked together with the Muslim
Students Association (MSA), which was based
on college and university campuses in the United
States and Canada. The FIA attempted in the
1970s to conduct a census of Muslims living in the
United States and to standardize the curriculum
for religious education classes held at mosques and
Islamic centers, but these efforts were not success-
ful. There is still no widely accepted estimate of
the number of Muslims living in the United States.
The FIAs effectiveness has diminished greatly
since the 1970s. The MSA and the Islamic Society
of North America (1SNA) have largely replaced it,
and publication of the Muslim Star has ceased.

Further reading: Kambiz Ghanea Bassiri, Competing
Visions of Islam in the United States: A Study of Los Ange-

les (Westport. Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997); Jane 1.
Smith, Islam in America (New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1999).

Fez

Fez is a city in northern Morocco that has been
the country’s political and intellectual capital for
much of its history and remains famous for its old
city (medina), declared a world heritage site by the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) in 1981. Today it has a
population of nearly 1 million (2004), composed
of mostly ethnic Arabs and Berbers. The majority
of residents are Sunni Muslims, though there is a
sizeable Jewish community that has lived there for
centuries. The Maliki Legal School is the predomi-
nant one in the city, as it is in most of the rest of
North Africa.

The history of Fez began in the late eighth
century, when the first leaders of the Idrisid
dynasty (789-926) established the city at the edge
of the Saiss valley. Possessing a strategic location
in the western corridor between the Mediterra-
nean Sea and the Sahara, Fez became the northern
terminus for the Saharan caravan trade and also
benefited from its location near one of Moroccos
richest agricultural regions. Over the centuries,
Fez was ruled by a number of different dynas-
ties, none of which left their mark on the city to
the same extent as the Berber Marinid dynasty
(1196-1464). Between 1248 and 1465, the Mari-
nids embellished their capital with many of the
exquisite architectural monuments for which it
is known. In addition, Fez was the country's
intellectual capital, largely due to the presence
of the Qarawiyyin University, which became the
center of learning for western lslamdom. During
this same period, the Spanish Reconquista drove
Andalusian Muslims to North Africa, where many
settled in Fez, making it the repository of the
legacy of Hispano-lslamicate culture.

After the fall of the Marinids, Fez's fortunes
declined, although it has retained its reputation

fidai 237

The old city of Fez, Morocco (Federico R. Campo)

as the country's cultural center. During the 20th
century, the city's political prominence was eclipsed
by Rabat, and its economic dominance was claimed
by Casablanca. The establishment of a modern uni-
versity in Rabat has even robbed Fez of its distinc-
tion as Moroccos intellectual center. Much of the
historic Medina has fallen into disrepair, despite
attempts by various groups to restore it. Debate
continues over what lies ahead for this “jewel of
Spanish-Arabic civilization'’ and whether Fez can
make a future for itself to rival its glorious past.

Sec also Andalusia; cities.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: Titus Burckhard, Fez, City of Islam.
Translated by William Stoddart (Cambridge: Islamic

Texts Society. 1992); Roger Lc Tourneau, Fez in the Age
of the Merinids. Translated by B. A. Clement (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1961).

fidai (Arabic, also fidawi, plural: fedayeen,
ft day in; Persian fedaiyan)

A fidai is one who is willing to sacrifice his life
for a cause, which can be religious or political
or a combination of both. The term is based on
an Arabic word meaning ransom or redemption
(fida). A verbal form of this word occurs in the
Quran, where God redeems Abrahams son with
a sacrificial animal (Q 37:107), thus freeing Abra-
ham from sacrificing his own son, which is what
God had previously demanded of him. In Islamic
law, paying ransoms was permitted in order to free

238 fiqh

Muslim prisoners from their Christian captors.
Later in the Middle Ages, the fedayeen were the
dedicated followers of Hasan-i Sabbah (d. 1124),
the leader of the Nizari branch of the Ismaili Shia
in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Known to the West as
the Assassins, the fedayeen would infiltrate enemy
towns in order to publicly assassinate prominent
leaders, even at the risk of their own lives. One
of their most important victims was the Seljuk
vizier Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), the political head
of the Abbasid Empire at the time. Such actions
earned them the hatred of many Muslims, who
called them heretics and hashish smokers (thus
the name Assassin).

In more recent times, several groups of guer-
rilla fighters have been called fedayeen. These
include Arab volunteers from Egypt, Jordan, and
Syria who fought on behalf of the Palestinians
against the Israelis between 1948 and 1967. They
became the dominant elements in the formation
of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the
1960s. In Iraq, the Fedayeen Saddam was created
in 1995 to serve as Saddam Husayn's paramilitary
force. When Anglo-American forces invaded and
occupied Iraq in 2003, it constituted the core of
the resistance the coalition forces encountered.
The most overtly religious fedayeen in the mod-
ern period were the Fedaiyan-i Islam, a radical
Shii terrorist group in Iran. Formed during the
1940s in close association with Shii clerics, it was
composed mostly of young men living on the
margins of Iran's major cities. Through assassina-
tions of secular government officials, they sought
to bring about a new political system based on the
sharia. Violently suppressed by the shahs govern-
ment in the 1950s, the organization reemerged
after the 1978-79 revolution, only to dissolve
when the Khomeini government was formed and
most of the radicals' objectives were achieved.
The secular counterpart to the Fedaiyan-i Islam
was the Fedaiyan-i Khalq (the peoples fedayeen),
a Marxist movement that sought to overthrow the
Shah's government during the 1970s.

See also Ismaili Shiism; jihad; suicide.

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their His-
tory and Doctrines (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 1990); Farhad Kazemi, “The Fadaiyan-c Islam:
Fanaticism, Politics, and Terror." In From Nationalism
to Revolutionary Islam , edited by Said Amir Arjomand
(Albany: Stale University of New York Press, 1984);
Yezid Sayegh. Armed Struggle and the Search for State:
The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997).

flqh (Arabic: understanding)

Ficfh is a term for Islamic law, particularly as it is
interpreted and implemented by legal experts from
among the ulama. Whereas the sharia is ideally
the comprehensive body of law ordained by God,
ficfh involves Muslims' commitment to understand
God's law and make it relevant to their lives. As
such, it is a religious form of what is called "juris-
prudence'' in the West, and it extends its reach
from matters of worship to detailed aspects of
everyday conduct. A member of the ulama who is
trained in ficfh is called a faqih (jurist).

When the first Arab-Muslim empires arose
during the eras of the Umayyad Caliphate (661-
750) and the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258),
Muslims were compelled to create a legal sys-
tem for the conduct of their own affairs and
their relations with their non-Muslim subjects.
Administering new territories from Spain and
North Africa to northwest India with their
diverse peoples presented challenges to Muslims
that Muhammad and the first Muslims had not
contemplated in seventh-century Mecca and
Medina. The Umayyads and Abbasids looked to
the preexisting legal traditions of the Byzantine
and Persian Empires, Jewish and Christian laws,
and local custom. Religiously minded Muslim
jurists used the Quran, community customs,
and their individual opinions to arrive at legal
decisions during this early period. Many held
that Muslim laws should be based as much as
possible on the Quran and the sunna (authentic
practice) of Muhammad and his Companions

flqh 239

as recorded in the HADITH. By the ninth century,
Muslim jurists had developed a coherent Islamic
legal tradition that was held to be applicable
to matters of worship as well as more worldly
affairs, especially in towns and cities. Out of
numerous local legal traditions, four major fiqh
schools (sing, madhhab ) came to be recognized as
authoritative among Sunni Muslims: the Hanafi
Legal School, the Maliki Legal School, Shafii
Legal School, and the Hanbali Legal School.
The Hanafis began in Kufa (Iraq), the Malikis in
Medina, the Shafiis in Fustat (Egypt), and the
Hanbalis in Baghdad. Several Shii legal schools
also arose, but the principal one is the Jaafari
Legal School of Twelve-Imam Shiism.

All of these traditions of fiqh continue to be
followed today by Muslims, especially in matters
of worship, personal status, and family law. The
Hanafi School now prevails among Muslims in
Turkey, Iraq, Central Asia, Afghanistan, China,
Pakistan, and India. The Maliki School is followed
mainly in North Africa, the Sudan, West and Cen-
tral Africa, and Kuwait. The chief legal school in
Egypt, Syria, East Africa, South India, Sri Lanka,
Southeast Asia, and the Philippines is that of the
Shafiis. The Hanbali School prevails in Saudi Ara-
bia and Qatar, and it has had a significant influ-
ence on many Muslims around the world. The
Jaafari tradition of fiqh is followed by the Shia of
Iran, southern Iraq, southern Lebanon, and parts
of India and Pakistan.

The different legal schools have come to
agree that there are four fundamental sources, or
“roots," of fiqh. Ranked in order of importance,
they are the Quran, the sunna, consensus ( ijmaa ),
and analogical reasoning (qiyas). This ordering
of the sources for law was developed by the great
jurist Muhammad Idris al-Shafii (d. 820). In the
Quran itself, there are only a few dozen legislative
commands, found mostly in the Medina chapters
(for example, Q 2, 3, 4, and 5). Much of the law is
drawn from the hadith, which contains accounts
of what Muhammad said and did. The sunna, or
normative practice, is derived from these accounts.

Not all hadith were considered to be authentic,
however. Muslims had to decide which ones were
valid, based on who had transmitted them and
whether they conformed to the Quran. During
the ninth century, hadith regarded as the most
authentic were arranged by subject and collected
into books, which made them more available for
study and consultation by students, scholars, and
legal experts throughout Muslim lands. The two
leading hadith collections for Sunnis are those of
al-Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875).

Al-Shafii and other jurists recognized that the
Quran and hadith did not address all of the legal
issues Muslims faced in the widespread Islamicate
empire, so they accepted laws based on communal
consensus to supplement those based on revela-
tion. This, the third root of fiqh, was endorsed by a
hadith ascribed to Muhammad, which stated, “My
community will never agree on error.” Eventually,
the consensus was understood to be that of the
jurists themselves, not of the community at large.
The fourth root, qiyas, allowed for the limited use
of personal reasoning by qualified jurists, but it
was subordinated to reveI-ATION, the hadith, and
communal tradition. Analogical reasoning helped
jurists make rulings concerning such issues as
determining the direction of prayer, the minimum
amount of money a groom owed to his bride's
family at marriage, and varieties of food and drink
not mentioned in the Quran and hadith that were
forbidden to Muslims. A more inclusive form of
legal reasoning, known as ijtihad , also played a
significant role in the development of the Islamic
legal tradition, although it met with considerable
resistance from conservative jurists who were
concerned that too much independent reason-
ing, or personal opinion, would cause Muslims to
stray from the sharia.

Most areas of life were thought to be governed
by fiqh, at least in theory. These included worship
(ritual purity, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and the
hajj), social life (marriage, divorce, inheritance,
and business transactions), and crimes (adultery,
theft, use of alcohol, brigandage, and apostasy).

240 Fire

According to jurists, the legal correctness of any
activity was to be judged according to a scale of
values. On the positive side were acts deemed
to be required or recommended by God and the
Prophet; on the negative side were forbidden and
reprehensible ones. Between these two groups
were acts and relations that were simply permit-
ted, without special merit or fault. Adherence
to Islamic law was a matter of personal respon-
sibility, endorsed by the quranic commandment
of “commanding the right and forbidding the
wrong” (Q 3:104). Ultimately, divine reward and
punishment awaited Muslims in the hereafter
according to their righteousness or sinfulness.
In society, however, the law was enforced by the
state and its designated officials, such as the judge
( qadi ) and public censor ( muhtasib ). People also
obtained advisory opinions (sing, fatwa) from a
fiqh specialist known as a MUFTI. Basic knowledge
about the law and its “roots” was gained by liv-
ing in a Muslim society, but those who were to
become experts had to become literate in Arabic
and study with legal scholars at Islamic colleges
(sing, madrasa). There, Jiqh was the core subject
of the curriculum.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, fiqh and the
authority of jurists were seriously weakened with
the introduction of Western legal systems as a
result of colonization and the creation of modern
nation-states. In most Muslim countries, fiqh was
confined to matters of personal law, and efforts
were made to reduce a legal tradition in which
differences of opinion were accepted to one
concretized in formal legal codes. Jurists have
since responded by engaging in their own legal
reform efforts and creating schools for preserv-
ing and propagating their religious traditions
within increasingly secular societies. In some
countries, moreover, Islamic jurisprudence and
Muslim jurists have assumed positions of sig-
nificant influence, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Indeed, in the 1970s, the Iranian revolutionary
leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989)
promoted a theory of Islamic government ruled

by jurists called wilayat al-faqih, “the jurist's
government," which served as the basis for the
drafting of the Islamic Republic of Iran's constitu-
tion in 1979.

See also colonialism; education; hisba; secu-
larism; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Ignaz Golziher, In trod net ion to Islamic
Theology and Law. Translated by A. and R. Hamori
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981);
Wael Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Fazlur
Rahman, Islam. 2d cd. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2002); Joseph Schachl, An Introduction to Islamic
Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964).

Fire (Arabic: al-nar)

Fire is not just an element of nature in Islam, it
is also the equivalent of hell. Belief in a place of
punishment for wrongdoers in the AFTERLIFE is
widespread among the worlds religions. In Islam,
belief in a fiery hell, together with belief in a
heavenly paradise for the righteous, is regarded as
an important component of FAITH. Muslims base
their afterlife beliefs on the Quran and the hadith,
where there are numerous statements about both
the Fire and paradise. Historically, however, these
beliefs were developed from afterlife ideas that
had originated earlier among the ancient civiliza-
tions of the Middle East, Zoroastrianism and early
Judaism and Christianity.

According to the Quran, the Fire was a hor-
rific “home" or “dwelling" where the sinful
and unbelievers were forced to wear clothing
of fire, drink scalding water, and eat poisonous
fruit (Q 37:62-68; 22:19-21). Another Quranic
name for the Fire was Gehenna ( jahannam ), a
term for hell used in Judaism and Christianity.
The Quranic depiction of the Fire was greatly
enhanced in later medieval accounts about the
afterlife that occur in the hadith, theological
works, and visionary literature. According to
some imaginative traditions, the realm of the

fitna 241

Fire was composed of seven levels, each with its
own distinctive name, such as “abyss,*' “blaze,"
and “furnace.” People were assigned to the
level that suited the degree of their sinfulness,
together with the corresponding punishments
that were administered by the angel Malik and
his assistants. Some accounts described the Fire
as a living creature — a monster with thousands
of heads and mouths. According to Muslim
theologians, wrongdoers would not necessar-
ily be punished in the Fire for eternity. Rather,
punishment was finite, and wrongdoers might
eventually be admitted to paradise once their
sins had been atoned.

Belief in the Fire helped focus the attention
of Muslims on holding fast to their faith and
performing their religious obligations. Some
medieval Sufis, however, held that too much
concern with the Fire and paradise could dis-
tract spiritually minded mystics from achieving
union with God. Others saw fire as a metaphor
for the passion of the spiritual lover that ended
with his or her annihilation in the beloved, God,
or they interpreted it as the intense pain experi-
enced as a result of one's separation from God.
In more recent times, modernist thinkers and
reformers have attempted to explain the Fire and
paradise as psychological or spiritual conditions
rather than actual places where people would
live in the afterlife. Nonetheless, the prevailing
view among Muslims today, as with most Mus-
lims in the past, is that punishment in the fires
of hell is a reality that awaits all wrongdoers and
unbelievers.

See also angel; death; eschatology; Satan.

Further reading: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, The Remem-
brance oj Death and the Afterlife (Kitab dhikr al-mawt
wa-ma bdahu): Book XL of the Revival of the Religious
Sciences (Ihya ulum al-din). Translated by T. J. Winter
(Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1995); Jane Idle-
man Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic
Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1981).

fitna (Arabic: punishment by trial,
temptation)

The term fitna has several meanings. In the con-
text of early Islamic history, it refers to one of sev-
eral armed conflicts, or civil wars, that occurred
within the Muslim community (umma) during
the seventh and eighth centuries. These wars led
to the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate
in Damascus, the rise of the Khawarij sectarian
movement, the schism between the Sunnis and
the Shiis, and the founding of the Abbasid Caliph-
ate in Baghdad. The first fitna occurred when
the caliph Uthman IBN Affan was assassinated
in 656 by a group of dissidents from Egypt who
were angry with the favoritism he had shown to
members of his clan, the Abd Shams, a prominent
branch of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca. Uthman's
successor, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin,
declined to avenge his death, which earned him
the enmity of Uthman's supporters, including
Muhammad's wife Aisha bint Abi Bakr and some
leading Companions of the Prophet. Ali defeated
these opponents at the Battle of the Camel that
same year, but this only led to a clash with
Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan (d. 680), a close relative
of Uthman, and Muawiya's Syrian Arab supporters
at the Battle of Siffin in 657. This confrontation
ended with an arbitrated peace that left the ques-
tion of leadership in the Muslim community unre-
solved until 661, when Ali was assassinated by the
Khawarij, a dissident faction that had opposed
Ali's peace agreement with Muawiya at Siffin. The
first fitna ended in 661, with Muawiya becoming
CALIPH, inaugurating the reign of the Syrian-based
Umayyad Caliphate (661-750).

The second fitna occurred when Husayn IBN
Ali, grandson of Muhammad, rebelled against the
Umayyads and was killed with a group of loyal
supporters at Karbala, Iraq, in 680. The tragic
story of his death as a martyr has since assumed a
place of central importance in the religious life of
the Shia, and it is remembered by them annually
during their Ashura rituals. Other factions in the
early Muslim empire also rebelled at this time.

242 Five Pillars

including one led by Ibn Zubayr, who created a
rival caliphate in Mecca that lasted from 681 to
692, when it was destroyed by Umayyad forces
from Damascus. The third major fitna began in
744-745, when Shia in Iran and Iraq rebelled
against the Umayyads. In 750, these opposition
forces defeated the Umayyad armies and replaced
their caliphate with a new one led by the Abba-
sids, rulers who claimed descent from Muham-
mad's uncle Abbas. Other, more localized fitnas
occurred, but these three not only determined the
course of early Islamic history but also shaped
the development of the doctrines, practices, and
institutions of Sunni and Shii Islam. Indeed, one
of the chief justifications for having a strong ruler
was to prevent fitna from bringing chaos to the
community of Muslims. Also, the major HADITH
collections included chapters devoted to tradi-
tions about the great fitna that would beset the
community leading up to the end of the world and
the final judgment.

Likewise, the Quran uses fitna in the negative
sense of a trial or punishment that God inflicts
upon humans or has allowed them to undergo,
usually to test their faith. Thus, God tested the
prophets Moses and David (Q 9:126; 38:24) as
well as ordinary people (Q 21:35) and permit-
ted Satan to tempt the evil-minded (Q 22:53).
Evildoers will be punished with the fitna of being
forced to eat the bitter fruit of the Zaqqum tree
in hell (Q 37:62-66). Children and property are
worldly temptations that test the faith of believers
(Q 8:28).

In modern times, fitna has become a very
politically charged term. Conservative Muslim
authorities accuse women who go without veiling
in public of being embodiments of fitna (sexual
temptation), thus undermining the moral fabric
of society. Fatima Mernissi (b. 1940) and other
Muslim feminists argue that such men are invok-
ing medieval understandings of fitna to justify the
segregation of women and the curtailment their
freedoms. In Algeria, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi
Arabia, and elsewhere, political demonstrations.

popular uprisings, and insurrections have often
been labeled with the term fitna by leaders and
official media sources who hope thereby to quell
the dissent or violence and maintain public order.
See also eschatology; Shiism; Sunnism.

Further reading: Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of
Islam. Vol. 1, The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1974); Wilfcrd Madelung, The
Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliph-
ate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997);
Fatima Mernissi. The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist
Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam (Philadelphia:
Perseus Books, 1992).

Five Pillars

The Five Pillars are five ritual acts required of all
Muslims, based on injunctions in the Quran and
elaborated in the sunna of the Prophet Muham-
mad and in law (fiqh) developed by the principal
legal schools of Islam. The pillars nurture two
primary relationships for individual Muslims:
the relationship with God and with the entire
community of Muslim believers, the UMMA. The
first pillar, the SHAHADA y is a verbal witnessing of
the unity of God and of Muhammad's position in
Islam as the bearer of the final revelation, with
the words “There is no god but God, and Muham-
mad is the messenger of God." Shia add, “and Ali
is the friend of God,” in reference to their first
imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661). Uttering the
shahada sincerely in the presence of two Muslim
witnesses is all that is necessary to become a Mus-
lim. The central and possibly most visible pillar
is salat , translated as prayer, but here referring
specifically to five daily cycles of prostrations
after sunset, during the evening, at dawn, at mid-
day, and at mid-afternoon. Prayer is performed
anywhere ritual purity can be maintained. Mus-
lim men are required to attend a congregational
mosque (niasjid) for Friday prayers. Friday prayer
in a mosque is not a required activity for Mus-
lim women or for Shia. The third pillar, zakat,

flag 243

Friday prayer at al-Husayn Mosque in Cairo, Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

usually translated as almsgiving, asks Muslims
to give as charity a percentage of their wealth
attained from profit on certain kinds of income
and represents part of a larger attitude of charity
( sadaqa ) encouraged by the umma. Muslims who
are not ill, traveling, menstruating, or nursing
fast from dawn to dusk during Ramadan, the
ninth month of the Islamic lunar CALENDAR, to
fulfill the fourth pillar of Islam. The prohibition
on eating, drinking, smoking, and sexual activ-
ity during the day acts as a social leveler that is
enhanced by the communal activities and shar-
ing of food and drink in the evening. Finally,
the fifth pillar, the HAJJ, takes place as an annual
pilgrimage to Mecca and the surrounding area,
including a series of ritual acts required of every

Muslim one time during his or her lifetime if
physically and fiscally possible.

See also adhan; fasting; holidays; Shiism.

Margaret Leeming

Further reading: Frederick Denny, An Introduction to
Islam (New York: Macmillan, 1994); Sachiko Murata
and William C. Chittick, The Vision oj Islam (St. Paul,
Minn.: Paragon House, 1994).

flag

All modern countries use flags as national symbols,
and many of these national flags — including those
of secular nations — display designs that have a rec-
ognized connection with a religious tradition. The

244 flag

Flags

Iran

© Infobase Publishing

Saudi Arabia

flags of the United Kingdom (Britain), Switzer-
land, Sweden, Denmark, and Greece, for example,
have crosses on them, which links them with the
Christian religion. The Israeli flag has the Star
of David, who was an ancient Israelite king and
has traditionally been regarded as the composer
of the biblical book of Psalms. The flag of Japan
has a sun disk, which is a symbol of the sun god-
dess Amaterasu, ancestor of the Japanese imperial
household. Flags and banners have been used
to rally Muslims since the days of Muhammad in
the seventh century. Today, among the countries
with Muslim-majority populations, several have
flags with features that link them to the religion

of Islam. Saudi Arabia's flag combines the Arabic
shahada (the declaration “There is no god but God
and Muhammad is his messenger ') and a sword
on a field of green. The sword stands for the Saudi
royal dynasty that established the country, while
green is regarded as a holy Islamic color. The flag
of the Islamic Republic of Iran consists of the name
of Allah artfully presented as a flower or juxta-
posed crescent moons in the center, framed by two
horizontal bands containing repeated geometric
renderings of the expression Allah ahhar , ; “God is
greater." The use of red in the flag represents the
Shii virtue of martyrdom. In 1990, the Iraqi leader
Saddam Husayn added the same phrase to the

folklore 245

flag of his country, and it remained on Iraq's flag
even after the fall of his government in 2003. The
new flag of Afghanistan consists of the shahada
inscribed over a mosque. The flags of 1 1 countries
with Muslim-majority populations contain a form
of the new moon (hilal) and star design, including
Algeria, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Turkey. This
symbol has traditionally been used to represent
states governed by Muslims, especially since the
1 8th century, but it is not seen as an aspect of
Islamic worship, unlike the shahada.

See also government, Islamic; politics and
Islam.

Further reading: William G. Crampton, Smithsonian
Handbooks: Flags (New York: DK Publishing, 2002).

folklore

Folklore in the Islamicate lands encompasses
a rich and varied body of oral and written lit-
erature. In the Quran, several terms arc used
to denote the narrative accounts of prophets
and other didactic tales: qassa, haka, haddatha ,
khabara , and naba-a. These words indicate the
relating of news or passing on of information,
often with specific reference to the sayings and
doings of exemplary figures. The word ustura
also appears in the Quran with the pejorative
connotation of the superstitious tales believed
by the credulous and sinful. The same semantic
range appears in the hadith literature. It seems
clear that there were active storytelling tradi-
tions extant in the Hijaz (the western region
of the Arabian Peninsula) from before the time
of Muhammad (d. 632) that may have accom-
panied the rich tradition of pre-Islamic poetry.
In addition to early Arabian traditions, Islamic
folklore has been profoundly influenced by the
storytelling traditions in other parts of the world,
particularly those linked to the region via the
Silk Road. Indian, Chinese, Turkish, and Persian
stories have greatly enriched Arabic folklore.
Since at least al-Muhassin ibn al-Tanukhis 10th-

century collection of anecdotal tales, al-Faraj
baad al-shidda (Joyous Relief after Hardship),
there have been efforts to compile and classify
the various types of Arabic narratives. Another
famous work was Muhammad Awfi’s Jawami
al-hihayat wa-lawami al-riwayat (Collection of
stories and illustrious tales), a 13th-century col-
lection of some 2,000 Persian narratives.

Among the classificatory categories, hikaya is
perhaps the most common term used to denote
the range of fictional narratives, encompassing
didactic tales with ethical and moral functions,
etiological talcs and fables, heroic ballads and
legends, and fanciful stories of the supernatural.
These works include the Tutinama and Kalila wa
Dimna , two cycles of fable that were translated
into Arabic from Sanskrit literature. The Gulistan
of Saadi (d. ca. 1291) is perhaps the greatest
example of Persian hikaya literature. The sira
denotes a biographical account that may range
from the life of Muhammad to the Sirat Bani Mil -
lal , a long oral epic poem describing tribal wars
and genealogical heroes of Bedouins that remains
one of the most popular tales in Egypt and the
Middle East. The qissa came through Persian and
Turkish literature to signify biographical legends
such as the Hamzanama (The tale of Hamza),
love stories such as Layla wa Majnun and Shi-
rin-Farhad, and hagiographical talcs of prophets
and SAINTS such as the Qisas al-anbiya or the
Menaqib-i Haji Bektash. The most famous collec-
tion of Arabic folklore is, of course, Alf Layla wa -
Layla (The Thousand and One Nights , or Arabian
Nights ), a tremendous gathering of talcs with
Asian, Middle Eastern, and European origins.
However, this collection was actually reimported
to the Middle East from the French traveler Jean
Antoine Galland's publication Les mille et une
nuits , which he began to publish in 1704. Some of
the tales are of Arab origin, but many also appear
to be the inventions and collections of Galland
and later editors. The cycle was reintroduced into
the Arab world in the early 19th century and has
gained popularity.

246 food and drink

See also animals; Arabic language and litera-
ture; Majnun and Layla; Persian language and

LITERATURE.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: Dwight Reynolds, Heroic Poets, Poetic
Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arab
Epic Oral Tradition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1995); John Seyller, The Adventures of Hamza:
Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India (Washington,
D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution, and London: Azimuth, 2002);
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi
qisas al-anbiya , or “ Lives of the Prophets Translated by
William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002).

food and drink

Food is a fundamental requirement for all living
things, yet how it is selected, grown, prepared,
served, and eaten arc uniquely human activities.
Humans also have the ability to imagine and
manipulate symbolic meanings for food, incor-
porating them into their religious and cultural
life. The natural environment sets some limits
on the kinds and quantities of food that might be
available, grown, and harvested, but the cultural
environment is able to exploit these limitations
to the maximum, creating elaborate cuisines for
bodily pleasure, display on the table, and men-
tal contemplation. Food and drink also occupy
important places in memory and history, allowing
people to recall significant moments in the life of
their family, community, or nation and to express
their individual and collective identities.

Muslim social and religious life reflects these
different aspects of culinary culture. The Quran
provides a general framework with respect to the
religious and symbolic dimensions, as reflected
in its depictions of paradise, descriptions of God's
creative power, and legislation of dietary laws.
Adam and Eve, the first humans, lived in a gar-
den, enjoying all its fruits except those of the tree

of immortality, which was forbidden to them (Q
7:189; 2:35). When they disobeyed God and ate
from it, they were denied their place in the garden.
As creator of the universe, the Quran declares that
God is the one who sends rainwater to nourish the
earth's vegetation, including foods for people to
eat such as grain, date palms, grapes, olives, and
pomegranates (Q 6:99). More than being purely
natural phenomena, the growth of food plants and
animals is presented as a system of signs designed
to remind the faithful to submit and worship the
one God, Allah. According to the Quran, he cre-
ated all manner of food for humans to consume
(Q 6:14; 26:78), commanding the faithful, “Eat
of the good things that we have granted you"
(Q 2:172). Moreover, in the afterlife, righteous
believers are promised lush gardens through
which rivers of water, milk, honey, and wine flow
where they will consume food and drink served
by youthful servants and beautiful servant girls,
the houris (sing, houri).

The command to “eat of the good things"
is linked to admonitions not to follow in the
way of Satan, but to be thankful to God and
eat only what is permitted. Eating, therefore, is
symbolically associated with moral action, since
the Quran relates eating permitted foods with
thanking God, who provided them. The dietary
laws of what is permitted ( HALAL ) and forbidden
(hara m) are given in some detail in the Quran and
elaborated further in the hadith and juristic litera-
ture. While most foods are allowed, Muslims arc
obliged to abstain from consuming swine flesh,
blood, carrion, and wine. Meat must be properly
slaughtered in the name of God. Muslims are
permitted to eat lawful and pure food prepared
by other People of the Book, particularly Jews
and Christians. Adherence to the dietary laws
expresses the relation of Muslims with God and
establishes their identity as a distinct religious
community among other peoples.

For centuries, Muslims have drawn inspira-
tion from Muhammad, the founding prophet of
Islam, for many aspects of their life, including

food and drink 247

Flatbreads hoc from the baker’s oven in Alexandria, Egypt (Magda Campo)

their culinary practices. According to the HAD1TH,
he exemplified the ideal of moderation, expressed
in a quranic admonition for all people, “Eat and
drink, but do not be wasteful, for |God| does
not like those who are wasteful" (Q 7:31). In a
similar vein, Muhammad is remembered to have
said, “A believer eats with one intestine, while a
disbeliever eats with seven intestines," meaning
that Muslims should consume only what is suf-
ficient for their needs and not overeat. He is said
to have recommended that everyone sitting at a
meal eat small amounts so that there is food for
all, including unexpected guests. Moreover, he
also advocated giving food to the hungry, even if
it meant that one's own family had to forgo a meal.
Such practices reflected and upheld Arab hospital-
ity customs.

There is a body of lore in Islam about the
relation between good health and good food.
Greek medical science (with Indian and Persian
elements) was transmitted to Muslims during
the eighth and ninth centuries, but they also
developed their own distinctive body of medi-
cal knowledge known as “the medicine of the
Prophet" ( al-tib al-nahawi ) in the ninth century.
According to a book on the subject by I bn Qayyim
al-Jawziyya (1292-1330), Muhammad provided
guidance on how to maintain bodily health, which
was seen as a gift from God. Among the basic
dietary facts Ibn Qayyim wanted his readers to
know was that eating too little, overeating, eating
only one type of food, and nutritional imbalances
were major causes of illness. Muhammad's eating
and drinking habits as described in the hadith

248 food and drink

showed the way to a healthy life, as stories about
his other teachings and deeds showed the way to
salvation after death.

Following the example of the Prophet, Mus-
lims were taught that it was preferable to sit down
and invoke the name of God before eating, eat and
drink with the right hand only (the left was asso-
ciated with Satan), and take food only from the
serving dishes nearest to where one was seated.
Also, food should be passed to the right, not to
the left. It was also reported that when Muham-
mad liked a food, he ate it, but if he disliked it, he
kept silent and left it on his plate. Reflecting his
Arabian cultural heritage, Muhammad's favorite
beverage, aside from water, was fresh milk. In
addition to its nutritional value, milk was thought
to reduce depression and help people who suf-
fered from lung diseases. Muhammad's other
preferred foods included a meat and bread stew
called tharid , which Muslims in many parts of the
world still prepare in a variety of ways. Meat was
thought by some commentators to be the pre-
ferred food of paradise. Muhammad used vinegar
as a condiment with bread, but he also liked to cat
fruits, honey, and sweets. Vinegar was thought to
help with digestion, while figs were good for the
liver and spleen and an antidote for poison.

In accordance with Muslim scriptures and cus-
toms, culinary practices play an important role in
ritual life and in FEASTING traditions. This is most
evident in the month-long Ramadan fast, when
Muslims are required to abstain from all food and
drink during the daylight hours. The fast is broken
at the end of each day, when traditional Ramadan
dishes arc usually prepared. Dates and water are
favorites for breaking the fast. People of the Ara-
bian Peninsula have a favorite Ramadan dish called
ramadaniyya , a mixture of dried fruits and nuts
that has been soaked overnight in water. There is
also a major feast that marks the end of Ramadan
called Id al-Fitr (Feast of Fast-Breaking), when
sweets are customarily consumed. The other major
feast on the Muslim calendar is Id al-Adha (Feast
of the Sacrifice), which is held at the conclusion of

the annual HAJJ to Mecca. This holiday features the
sacrifice of pastoral animals (lambs, goats, cattle,
and camels) and consumption of meat dishes
in memory of the piety of Abraham, who nearly
sacrificed his own son at God's command but was
allowed to substitute a ram instead. Even fulfilling
the obligation of almsgiving (zakat and sadaqa ),
another of Islam's Five Pillars, involves food, since
calculation of the amount required to be given in
charity was originally based on crop production
and livestock holdings. Many Muslims still fulfill
their charitable obligations by providing food for
the hungry and needy.

Aside from the two Ids, one of the most widely
observed Islamic holidays is the birthday ( MAWUD )
of Muhammad, which occurs during the third
month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Muslims
in many parts of the world, especially children,
celebrate it with the consumption of sweets.
Followers of Shiism and Sufism observe holiday
feasts and fasts connected with saints particular to
their traditions — the Shii Imams and Sufi aw/liya ,
or “friends of God." Life cycle observances such
as circumcision, marriage, and death also involve
distinctive culinary practices in accordance with
local food traditions.

There is no distinctively Islamic cuisine that is
embraced by all Muslims, however. Dietary laws
set some limitations, but they still allow a great
deal of latitude with regard to the kinds of food
and drink allowed and the ways they can be pre-
pared, combined, and served. Distinctive culinary
cultures, therefore, have developed in different
parts of the Muslim world. Among the most nota-
ble are those of the Persians, Arabs, and Turks.
Other major cuisines arc those of South Asia and
Southeast Asia. Among the Middle Eastern peo-
ples, lamb is the favorite meat, and wheat bread
and rice compete with each other as the basic sta-
ples. Rice becomes increasingly important as one
travels eastward from the Persian Gulf region to
Southeast Asia. All cuisines in Muslim countries
benefit from the widespread use of savory spice
mixtures, herbs, and peppers. Favorite beverages

food and drink 249

are tea, fruit drinks (sharbat), and COFFEE for spe-
cial occasions. Cooling yogurt-based drinks are
popular in Turkey, Iran, and India.

Persian culinary culture has ancient pre-
Islamic roots and is distinguished by its variety of
rice dishes (especially pilafs), its mild sweet and
sour flavor combinations, its preference for fresh
herbs, and its soups. Persia greatly influenced the
culinary cultures of the Arabs, the Turks, and the
peoples of northern India.

Arab cuisine, which has pre-lslamic Bed-
ouin origins, is noted for its spicy lamb dishes,
vegetable and meat kabobs, meat stews, stuffed
vegetables, and tasty condiments and salads such
as hummus (a mashed chickpea and sesame paste
dip) and tabbouleh (a parsley, cracked wheat,
and tomato salad flavored with onion, lemon,
mint, and olive oil). The high culture of medieval
Baghdad played a major role in the interweaving
of Arab food traditions with those of Persia and
the East. A popular fried and stuffed appetizer
known as sanbusak was introduced to the Arab
Middle East there. Among North African peoples,
the most typical staple food is couscous, which
consists of little grains of semolina wheat dough
that are steamed and served like rice with meats,
vegetables, and savory sauces.

Turkic peoples, like the Arabs, started out as
nomads. Their food traditions developed gradu-
ally as a result of interactions with Persians,
Arabs, Greeks, and peoples of eastern Europe. The
palace kitchens of the Ottoman sultans in Istan-
bul contributed significantly to the creation of a
cosmopolitan cuisine in east Mediterranean lands
and eastern Europe after the 15th century that
continues today. Typical elements in Turkish cui-
sine include kabobs, meat casseroles and pastries
made with fine layers of filo dough, and wide-
spread use of yogurt and cheeses. They rival the
Persians in the variety of elegant rice dishes they
prepare, especially pilafs and dolmas (vegetables
stuffed with rice and meat). The most common
staple for Turks, however, is bread, which they
also call "the food of friendship."

The culinary traditions of South Asia are both
ancient and diversified, with deep pre-lslamic
roots that extend geographically throughout India
to Persia and Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean
basin, and Southeast Asia. South Asia is home
to great Hindu and Buddhist civilizations, and
Islamicate civilization flourished there with them
after the 12th century. The historical interrela-
tions between these civilizations are reflected in
the regions culinary cultures. Typical elements
found on north Indian and Pakistani Muslim
tables include wheat bread (naan or chapatti) as
a basic staple, a variety of tasty lentil and bean
dishes called dal, batter-fried vegetable and meat
appetizers (pakoras), curries, and spicy dishes of
layered or mixed meat, rice and vegetables called
biryanis. Masala, a combination of dry spices, is
used to flavor meats and vegetables, while spicy
mint and sweet mango chutneys arc used as
condiments. In southern India (Kerala and Tamil
Nadu), molded rice dumplings served with a
fiery chili soup called sambar is very popular, as
arc dosas , a pancake made of a mixture of lentil
and rice flour. Shrimp and fish dishes are also
favorites. Coconut milk is used in cooking, and
coconut chutney is the preferred condiment in
the region. For the people of West Bengal and
Bangladesh, the favorite foods are local rice and
fish dishes, but they are also fond of north Indian
cuisine. Indeed, historical scholarship has shown
that the Islamization of this region was partly a
result of the conversion of its forest lands east
of the Ganges to wet rice agriculture in the 17th
and 18th centuries by Muslims and Hindus who
immigrated from north India.

There are many different regional culinary
cultures in Southeast Asia, too, where the largest
Muslim population in the world is located today.
The influence of Indian and Chinese culinary
cultures can be found there, but there are also
indigenous ones that have distinctive dishes,
especially those featuring taro and cassava root
products, sago palm flour, and seafood. Rice has
lately become an important food staple, however,

250 free will and determinism

for many people in the region. In both Indonesia
and Malaysia, people also like to eat a type of
kabob called satay, which has thin strips of meat,
fish, or chicken that are skewered, grilled, and
served with dipping sauces. Hot chilis, originally
from the New World, and sweet coconut milk are
used along with other spices and peanut sauces to
add flavor to rice and fish dishes.

Muslim culinary cultures have continued to
change and evolve in the modern period. Colo-
nization of Muslim lands by Europeans led to
the introduction of new foods, restaurants, and
industrialized food production. With the creation
of nation-states in the 20th century, national cui-
sines began to appear, as reflected in cookbooks
featuring ‘‘Lebanese,” “Palestinian,” “Turkish,”
“Moroccan,” “Saudi,” and even “Kuwaiti” reci-
pes. During the last decades of the 20th century,
American soft drinks flooded local markets, fol-
lowed by fast food chains featuring hamburgers,
French fries, fried chicken, and pizza. These were
locally owned franchises, however, which had to
adhere to Islamic dietary laws. They also allowed
limited use of local flavorings and adaptations of
indigenous recipes.

During the 1990s and 2000s, opposition to
U.S. Middle East policies sparked boycotts of
U.S. -based food chains and a return to more
traditional indigenous foods in many countries.
It also led to the creation of alternative “Islamic”
commodities, such as Mecca Cola and Zamzam
Cola. On the other hand, the influx of Muslim
immigrants into Europe and North America led
to the establishment of halal food businesses
that served the immigrant communities in those
parts of the world. It also helped introduce new
foods there, as can be seen in the popularity of
Turkish doner kebab sandwiches in Germany,
North African foods in France, South Asian
foods in Great Britain, and Arab (especially
Lebanese and Palestinian) and Persian foods in
the United States.

See also agriculture; animals; basmala; colo-
nialism; creation; fasting; Ottoman dynasty.

Further reading: Peter Heine, Food Culture in the Near
East, Middle East , and North Africa (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 2004); Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,
Healing with the Medicine of the Prophet. Translated by
Jalal Abual Rub (Riyadh: Darussalam, 2003); Claudia
Roden, The New Book of Middle Eastern Food (New
York: Random House, 2001); Maxime Rodinson, A.
J. Arbcrry, and Charles Perry, Medieval Arab Cookery
(Devon, U.K.: Prospect Books. 2001); David Waines,
In a Caliphs Kitchen (London: Riad El-Rayycs, 1989);
Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper, eds., A Taste of Time:
Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (London: Tauris
Parke Paperbacks, 2001).

free will and determinism See Ashari School;
fate; Mutazili School; theology.

fundamentalism See Islamism; politics and Islam;
Wahhabism.

funerary rituals

Funerary rituals are concerned with the disposal
of the dead and provide the living with ways
to channel deeply felt emotions caused by the
loss of a loved one. They are occasions when
a society's beliefs about life and DEATH and the
sacred and profane are most visible and when
the bonds that hold people together as families
and communities are affirmed and tested. In
Islamic communities, as in Jewish and Chris-
tian ones, funerary rituals involve different
kinds of activities: preparations for death and
burial, interment of the body, mourning, and
memorialization. These rites combine practices
prescribed by religious tradition, local cultural
customs, and improvised actions called forth by
the specific circumstances present when a death
or a funeral occurs.

Fiqh literature, composed by experts in Islamic
law, sets forth the formal ritual requirements and
taboos that Muslims are expected to observe.

funerary rituals 251

According to these texts, which are based on
interpretations of the Quran, hadith, and the con-
sensus of the ulama, funerary rites should include:
1) pronouncing the testimony of faith ( shahada )
prior to death and turning the dying persons face
toward Mecca; 2) ritually washing and shroud-
ing the corpse; 3) performing funeral prayers; 4)
conducting the body to the CEMETERY; 5) burial of
the corpse on its right side, with the face turned
to Mecca; 6) mourning; and 7) visiting the grave.
The corpse may be dressed in ordinary but not
expensive clothing. Burial should be performed at
a nearby cemetery within 24 hours of death. Men
usually preside in the funeral prayers and ceremo-
nies, but in many cultures women also participate.
The body is placed in the grave without a coffin,
and extra room is left in the grave out of a belief
that the deceased will be compelled to sit up and
undergo an interrogation by two angels of death
known as Munkar and Nakir. To prepare the dead
for this interrogation, basic articles of faith arc
recited at the time of burial. This is called the
talqin. People usually take turns throwing dirt
into the grave, and they pronounce prayers on
behalf of the deceased, especially the verse “From
it [the earth) we created you, then we put you
back into it, and from it we will bring you forth
again" (Q 20:55). Other funerary prayers include
the Fatiha (Q 1) and the chapter “Ya Sin" (Q
36) of the Quran as well as supplications drawn
from the hadith and other religious texts. Once
the grave is filled, it is leveled. The ulama have
strongly disapproved of decorating the grave site
or erecting a building over it. Nonetheless, many
Muslim cemeteries have gravestones, mausole-
ums, mosques, and saint shrines. Indeed, some
of the most impressive examples of Islamicate art
and architecture are connected with housing and
memorializing the dead.

Muslim jurists have also attempted to curb
many lamentation and mourning practices because
of their belief that too much grief for the dead is
an affront to God, the giver of life and death.
They are also wary of the assimilation of what

they regard as un-lslamic innovations (b/daa);
excessive grieving, public displays of emotion,
singing, and dancing are considered to be repre-
hensible or forbidden. Despite such regulations,
in actual practice people may mourn for up to
40 days, or even a year, after death, especially
for husbands, wives, or parents. Somber Quran
recitations are conducted during the mourning
period, during which families customarily keep
a solemn public demeanor, wear black clothing,
and avoid festive occasions such as weddings
and parties. Relatives, friends, neighbors, and
acquaintances are expected to visit, bring gifts of
food, and offer their condolences as soon as they
can after a death has occurred. Often, meals are
shared in memory of the dead; in rural societies,
such feasts may bring a whole village together. In
many Muslim cultures, an animal is sacrificed,
with the meat shared among the mourners and
the poor. Each year, especially on major holidays,
family members visit the graves of loved ones,
and in some cultures they distribute food to chil-
dren, strangers, and the needy in remembrance
of the dead.

Of course, prescribed and culturally deter-
mined funerary practices may be waived or
circumvented in exceptional situations. Soldiers
who die in battle can be interred in their blood-
soaked garments without ritual cleansing or
funerary prayers. People who die on an ocean
voyage may be buried at sea. Victims of wars
or natural catastrophes — earthquakes and tidal
waves, for example — may be buried in mass
graves. In modern times, Muslims who have
migrated to Western countries may be buried
in coffins in accordance with local burial and
sanitation ordinances. Some immigrant mosques
have their own mortuary facilities and purchase
plots of land in existing cemeteries for the burial
of Muslims. Some Muslims, however, prefer to
have their dead transported back to their native
lands for burial.

Sec also ablution; afterlife; food and drink;
martyrdom; soul and spirit; suicide.

252 Funj Sultanate

Further reading: Ahmed Abd al-Hayy Arifi, Death
and Inheritance: The Islamic Way; A Handbook of Rules
Pertaining to the Deceased. Translated by Muhammad
Shameem (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1995); Laleh
Bakhtiar, Encyclopedia of Islamic Law: A Compendium of
the Major Schools (Chicago: ABC International Group,
1996), 40-53; Juan Eduardo Campo, “Muslim Ways
of Death: Between the Prescribed and the Performed."
In Death and Religion in a Changing World, edited
by Kathleen Garccs-Foley, 147—177 (New York: M.E.
Sharpe, 2005); Timothy lnsoll, The Archaeology of Islam
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 166-200.

Funj Sultanate

The Funj Sultanate was an Islamic dynasty that
ruled the Upper Nile region of the Sudan for 300
years, from 1504 to 1821. Originally a pastoral
people, the Funj established a stale based in Sin-
nar under the leadership of Amara Dunqas after
the latter defeated the Christian kingdom of
Aiwa in 1504. Although Muslim monarchs ruled
the sultanate, the Funj developed a hierarchical
society headed by a semidivine king and a caste-
like ruling elite. The kings prided themselves on
their Islamic credentials, encouraged the presence
of Muslim scholars and holy men within their
kingdom, and provided support for pilgrims to go
to Mecca. However, in order to heighten a sense
of their separation from the common man, these
monarchs withdrew from public view, leaving the
high court officials to take functional leadership
of the kingdom.

The Funj were active in the caravan trade,
establishing business relationships with Egypt
and the wider Ottoman Empire. Maliki law and
Sufi orders both expanded considerably under
Funj rule. However, the Funj system broke down
during the late 18th century, when the sultans
lost political control to regional warlords, eco-
nomic control to a new merchant class, and spiri-
tual authority to the local holy men. Muhammad
Ali of Egypt finally brought the kingdom to an
end, conquering the region in 1820-21.

See also East Africa; Maliki Legal School.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: P. M. Holt, The Sudan of the Three
Niles: The Funj Chronicle, 970-1288/1504-1871 (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1999); R. S. O'Fahey and J. L. Spaulding,
Kingdoms of the Sudan (London: Methuen, 1974); Jay
Spaulding, The Heroic Age in Sinnar (East Lansing: Afri-
can Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1985).

Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar (1899-1981) Indian
Muslim intellectual and a leading scholar of Ismaili
Shiism and Islamic law

A. A. A. Fyzee was born near Poona, India, to a
prominent family of Ismaili Shii merchants. His
family favored the British educational system,
so after he obtained his college education, they
sent him to study at Cambridge University, where
he studied with several of the best Orientalist
scholars of the early 20th century, including A.
A. Bevan and R. A. Nicholson. After 1926, he was
employed at the High Court of Bombay. Fyzee
continued with his scholarly interests, however,
publishing studies and translations pertaining to
Islamic and Anglo-Islamic jurisprudence (f/qh).
As a reflection of the quality of his scholarly
ability, he was appointed a professor of Islamic
jurisprudence at Government College in Bombay.
In 1949, he was appointed India's ambassador to
Egypt and then served in several other ambassa-
dorial and government posts. He received many
academic honors in his later career and taught
Islamic studies at McGill University in Canada
and at the University of California at Los Angeles.
One of Fyzee's most esteemed contributions to
scholarship is his Outlines of Muhammadan Law
(1949). At the end of his career, he devoted him-
self to a critical edition of a medieval Ismaili fiqh,
Qadi Numan's Pillars of Islam (originally written
in the 10th century).

Fyzee's views of Islamic religion and law
(sharia and fiqh) were very modern and progres-

Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar 253

sive, like those of Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938)
and Abu al-Kalam Azad (1888-1958), other major
Indian Muslim intellectuals whom he admired. He
acknowledged the eternal truth contained in the
Quran but also maintained that the interpreta-
tion of the Quran and God's law had to adapt
to changing historical circumstances. Reflecting
his secular Western education and the influence
of Orientalism, Fyzee argued for the construc-
tion of a modern Islam. Thus, he proposed that
what he called the “reinterpretation" of Islam
required not only knowledge of traditional Islamic
sacred texts and the conditions in which they
were produced but also the study of the history
of religions, the comparative study of “Semitic”
religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and
languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic), and
knowledge about modern science. Islamic theol-
ogy ( kalam ) should be reformed in light of con-
temporary European thought and even recognize
the insights of Protestant theologians and Jewish

thinkers. Moreover, Fyzee argued that reinter-
pretation of Islamic law involved making critical
distinctions between essential moral principles
and detailed laws that were suited only to limited
historical circumstances. Among the areas where
he felt that immediate reform was needed was that
of womens rights, where he pointed out the con-
tradictions between the rights given to them by
the Quran in matters of marriage and inheritance,
and the de facto denial of these rights to women
in many Muslim-majority countries in the 20th
century.

See also Ismaili Shiism; secularism.

Further reading: Kenneth Cragg, Troubled by Truth:
Life Studies in Interfaith Concern (Edinburgh: Pent-
land Press, 1992), 187-202; A. A. A. Fyzee, Outlines
of Muhammadan Law (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1999); Ismail Poonawala, “In Memorium: A. A. A.
Fyzee, 1899-1981," International Journal of Middle East
Studies 14, no. 3 (1982).

Gabriel (Hebrew: man of God; Arabic:
Jibril)

Gabriel is the ANGEL of revelation in Islamic
belief and is counted among the archangels. His
name first appears in the pre-lslamic period in
two late books of the Bible — the book of Daniel
(8:15-26, 9:21-27) in the Old Testament and
the Gospel of Luke (1:11-20, 26-38) in the
New Testament. Gabriel is also mentioned in the
extra-biblical book of 1 Enoch (9:1-10, 40:6)
and in rabbinic Bible commentaries. In these
texts, he is portrayed as a divine messenger and
as an intercessor on behalf of Gods people. In the
Quran, Gabriels name occurs three times as one
of God's angels; he is the bringer of revelation (Q
297-98) and Muhammad’s supporter (Q 66:4).
Though not specifically mentioned in other parts
of the Quran, medieval commentators identified
Gabriel with the angelic spirit (ruh) that appeared
to Mary as a perfectly formed man to announce
to her that she would give birth to JESUS (Q
19:17-21). He was also thought to be the spirit
that descended on the Night of Destiny ( laylat
cxl-qadr), when the Quran was first revealed (Q
97), and in Q 27:192-194 he was said to be the
"trustworthy spirit" who brought Gods revela-
tion to Muhammad's heart.

Gabriel plays a bigger role in later accounts
of Muhammad's life. He is one of the angels
involved in cutting open Muhammad's breast and
cleansing his heart so as to prepare him for his
prophetic mission. In Ibn Ishaq's BIOGRAPHY of
Muhammad (eighth century), Gabriel confronts
the prophet on Mount Hira and commands him
to recite the Quran's first verses. According to
Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) and Quran commentators, he
guided Muhammad on his miraculous journey
from Mecca to Jerusalem, then through the seven
heavens, where he had visions of heaven and
hell, former prophets, and God. According to the
HADITH, Gabriel once appeared to Muhammad and
his companions in the form of a man with black
hair, dressed in white garments, and interrogated
him about Islam, FAITH ( iman ), and right action
(i/iscin). He also was linked to the events sur-
rounding Muhammad's Hijra to Medina in 622,
having warned him that his life was in danger.

In collections of legends about the prophets
who preceded Muhammad, such as al-Thalabi's
Lives of the Prophets (11th century), Gabriel's role
in human history was greatly expanded. For exam-
ple, Gabriel taught Adam the skills he needed in
order to survive after being expelled from para-
dise. He also came to the aid of Abraham, Joseph,

254

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 255

and Moses. The Shia link Gabriel to key events in
their versions of the lives of Muhammad, Ali IBN
Abi Talib, Fatima, and other Shii Imams. Thus,
Gabriel was present when Fatima and Ali were
married. He also conveyed to Muhammad a testa-
ment that was to be transmitted to the Imams, and
he announced to Muhammad that his grandson
Husayn (d. 680), the foremost of the martyrs,
would be killed by fellow Muslims.

Accounts differ as to Gabriels appearance. As
an angel, he was a being of pure light. According
to some traditions, he had a human form (as in Q
19:17-21) and could even ride a horse into battle as
a turbaned warrior. Ruzbihan Baqli (d. 1209), the
Persian mystic, saw Gabriel as “a bridegroom, like
a moon among the stars," wearing a red garment
with green silk trim (Baqli 47). Persian and Turkish
illustrated manuscripts of the 15th to 18th centu-
ries usually portray Gabriel in a human form with
wings, elegant garments, and a crown, surrounded
by flames. In some of the early hadith and other
texts, he was given a more awesome appearance — a
being with six wings, each of which had 600 wings
that could stretch across the horizons of the earth.

See also Adam and Eve; holy books; Husayn ibn
Ali; imam; Night Journey and Ascent; Shiism.

Further reading: Ruzbihan Baqli, The Unveiling of
Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master. Translated by Carl W.
Ernst (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Parvardigar Press, 1997); F.
E. Peters, A Reader on Classical Islam (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1994), 51-53, 65-66; Abu
Ishaq Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Thalabi,
Arais al-Majalis fi Qisas al-Anbiya, or “Lives of the
Prophets." Translated by William M. Brinner (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 2002).

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869-
1 948) political and spiritual leader of Indian
nationalist movement for independence from British
colonial rule

Known as Mahatma (Sanskrit, “great soul"), Gan-
dhi was instrumental in the successful struggle for

Indian independence from British imperial rule
through his methods of nonviolent resistance.
Gandhi was born in the Indian state of Gujurat in
1869 into the vaishya caste (merchants, traders,
and farmers) and was influenced by a variety of
Indian religions, including Jainism. From 1888
to 1891, he studied law in London, where he was
exposed to the Theosophical movement and influ-
enced by the writings of Leo Tolstoy (d. 1910).
In 1893, he began practicing law in South Africa,
where he was deeply influenced by the political
oppression of Indians by the British and, as a
result, began developing his unique strategies of
pacifist tactics based on the Indian religious prin-
ciples of satyagraha (Skt., truth-force) and ahimsa
(Skt., nonharm, nonviolence). Gandhi returned
to India in 1914 and garnered mass support for
the independence movement's political party, the
Indian National Congress. Through his Satyagraha
campaigns of 1920-22 and 1927-34 and in other
strategics of nonviolent noncooperation such as
the Salt March in 1930, in which he mobilized a
diversity of Indians and brought their struggle for
independence to the worlds attention, Gandhis
methods of passive resistance exposed the moral
untenability of British colonial rule in India. Gan-
dhi remained formally affiliated with the Congress
Party only through the mid-1950s but continued
to serve as the independence movement's sym-
bolic leader up through India's independence in
August 1947.

Gandhi saw each of India's religious tradi-
tions as encompassing similar truths and believed
that each religious community of India deserved
political representation in a future independent
India. Nonetheless, he articulated his political
vision for an independent India in Hindu sym-
bolism, which cultivated distrust among India's
largest religious minority, its Muslims, who were
represented politically by the Muslim League led
by Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948). Unlike
Jinnah, who represented the position that Mus-
lims were a unique cultural, religious, and social
entity deserving of political autonomy in a future

256 garden

state called PAKISTAN, Gandhi believed in an inde-
pendent India that would be religiously diverse
but unified in essence under a pluralistic style
of Hinduism. Gandhi was deeply opposed to the
idea of the partition of India into Muslim and
Hindu states and was devastated by the violent
partition of British India into Pakistan and India
that took place upon India's independence. Gan-
dhi was assassinated on January, 30, 1948, by a
Hindu extremist. His tragic death brought to the
nation's attention the anger of Hindu extremists
at Gandhi's concern for Indian Muslims. Since his
death, Gandhi has become a worldwide icon for
the power of passive resistance to political oppres-
sion, influencing such major leaders as Martin
Luther King, Jr.

See also All-India Muslim League; colonial-
ism; Hinduism and Islam; Khilafat Movement.

Megan Adamson Sijapati

Further reading: Judith Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobe-
dience, 1928-1934 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1977); Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography:
The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1957); Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Met-
calf, A Concise History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002); Rudrangshu Mukhcrjce, ed..
The Penguin Gandhi Reader (New York: Penguin Books,
1993).

garden (Arabic: bustan or janna; Persian:
bagh)

Gardens have played a central role in lslamdom as
locations of revenue production, display, scientific
exploration, entertainment, and relaxation. Medi-
eval poetry from throughout lslamdom, inscrip-
tions on garden pavilions and palaces, medieval
botanical manuals, and travel literature all attest
to the central role of the garden in public and
private architecture.

calligraphy adorning religious architecture
within or adjacent to gardens indicates that
patrons consider these spaces as earthly repre-

sentations of the heavenly paradise. Both the
Quran and hadith literature contain numerous
descriptions of paradise as a tree-filled, pleasantly
perfumed, and peaceful place in which the righ-
teous and pure followers of Islam will dwell after
Judgment Day. One of the most often-repeated
Quranic phrases about paradise mentions gardens
of eternity beneath which four rivers flow (Q
4:57; 5:85; 9:72; 18:31). The inhabitants of para-
dise (also referred to as Eden and al-Firdaus) will
live in complete comfort with their loved ones in
palaces built of silver and gold. These descriptions
of paradise in the Quran and hadith are often
paired with descriptions of hell (the Fire).

Paradisal garden in Chefchaouen, Morocco (Federico R.
Campo)

Ghadir Khumm 257

While the iconography of 17th-century gardens
such as the Taj Mahal complex in India certainly
suggests paradise, it is difficult to make the same
argument for all gardens in Islamicate realms.
Archaeological studies of garden remains and medi-
eval Arabic and Persian literature suggest that
gardens served many roles, especially within the
imperial palatial complexes of the Islamic empires.
Ninth-century palace gardens of Samarra and Bagh-
dad, for example, were showplaces of hydraulic
engineering. Hidden waterworks caused mechani-
cal birds to whistle and sing from tree branches in
one such garden, dazzling foreign ambassadors. The
10th- and 1 lth-century gardens of Andalusian Spain
contained experiments in irrigation and botanical
science. The 15th-century Topkapi Palace gardens
in Istanbul provided revenue for the sultan, and
large parks housed exotic animals from throughout
the realm for hunting and display.

The most ubiquitous and well-known garden
form is the chahar-bagh (four-part garden), a
garden crossed by water channels separating tree
or flower beds within which is placed a centrally
positioned pavilion. This form was probably
influenced by pre-lslamic Roman and Sasanian
gardens. Gardens also exist in a linear format and
as larger unstructured parklands.

While descriptive studies abound on gardens
in Islamic history, more analytical work on con-
textual meanings associated with these gardens
needs to be carried out. Similarly, contemporary
garden design deserves further attention. Private
gardens abound in inward-facing urban residen-
tial areas, and green spaces have become essential
elements of land use and landscape design in
expanding urban centers such as Cairo, Istanbul,
and Riyadh.

See also afterlife; agriculture; Andalusia;
cities.

Margaret Leeming

Further reading: Jacob Lassncr, The Topography of
Baghdad in the Early Middle Ages (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1970); Gulru Necipoglu, Architec-

ture , Ceremonial , and Power: The Topkapi Palace in the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (New York: Architec-
tural History Foundation, 1991); D. Fairchild Ruggles,
Gardens , Landscape , and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic
Spain (University Park; Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2000).

Gaza See Palestine.

genie Sec jinni.

Ghadir Khumm

Ghadir Khumm is one of the most important
religious holidays for the Shia. It is named after a
spring located between Mecca and Medina in the
Hijaz (western Arabia) where Muhammad stopped
with his companions after performing his fare-
well pilgrimage to Mecca in 632. At that location,
Muhammad stood next to his cousin and son-in-
law Ali 1BN Abi Talib (d. 661) and told his listen-
ers to consider Ali their master ( mawla ). This
event is recounted in Sunni and Shii sources, but
there arc different versions of it; each community
interprets it differently. According to accounts
favored by the Shia, Muhammad delivered a
sermon in which he stated that he would soon
depart this world and that he was leaving his fol-
lowers two things: the Quran and the ahl al-bayt ,
his family. Taking Ali by the hand, he asked his
audience if he, Muhammad, did not have priority
over other believers. When they agreed that he
did, Muhammad then declared, “Ali is the mas-
ter [mawla] of whomever I am the master." The
Shia therefore understand this declaration as the
divinely inspired transfer of authority to Ali and
the other holy imams, whom they consider to be
the true leaders of the Muslim community. It also
serves as a precedent for their belief in nass, the
God-given power that an imam has to designate
his successor. The Sunnis, however, do not accept
this interpretation of what happened at Ghadir

258 Ghalib, Mirza Asad Ali Khan

Khumm, nor do they recognize it as a holiday of
any significance. Rather, they view the event as
a call for Muslims to respect Ali because of his
close relationship with Muhammad but not as a
designation of leadership commanded by God.

Shii observance of the holiday of Ghadir
Khumm began during the 10th century in Egypt
and IRAQ, both of which were ruled by the Shii
dynasties at that time. It is celebrated by Shia
around the world on the 18th day of the 12th
month (Dhu al-Hijja) on the Islamic lunar calen-
dar, a few days after the end of the annual HAJJ. In
Iran, it is a public holiday, and Iraqi Shiis perform
pilgrimages to Karbala on that day.

See also Fatimid dynasty; holidays; Shiism;
Sunnism.

Further reading: Paula Sanders, Ritual , Politics, and the
City in Fatimid Cairo (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1994), 121-134; John Aldcn Williams, The
World of Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994),
170-172.

Ghalib, Mirza Asad Ali Khan (1797-1869)
leading I ndo- Pakistani author famed for his Persian
and Urdu poetry and prose

Ghalib was born into a prominent Muslim fam-
ily closely connected to the court of the Mughal
dynasty in India. He spent his early childhood
in Agra, the former capital, but at the age of 15
he moved to Delhi, the location of the impe-
rial court, where he lived for most of his life.
His poetic gifts were recognized by the ruler
of Awadh in north India and by Bahadur Shah
II (d. 1857), the last Mughal emperor. Ghalib
lost his royal patrons (and nearly his life) with
the great Indian “mutiny” against the British in
1857, but he soon overcame his financial troubles
with the help of a pension from the new British
government in India. He wrote in both Persian,
the literary language of the elite, and Urdu, the
“camp” language of the Muslim court. His poetry
expressed emotions of sorrow and suffering and

echoed mystical themes, but it was not overtly
religious. Indeed, he was a humanist in outlook
who regarded Muslims, Hindus, and Christians as
brothers. He employed classical Arabic and Per-
sian poetic forms: the ghazal (love lyric), ejasida
(ode), and mathnavi (rhymed couplet). Today, he
is remembered best for his Urdu poetry, collected
in his Diwan. He wrote more poetry in Persian,
however, and this has been collected in his Kul-
liyyat. Among Ghalib's prose writings are a history
of the Mughals and essays on the Persian lan-
guage. In 1969, the Ghalib Academy was opened
to commemorate the centenary of Ghalib's death.
It is located in New Delhi near the tomb of the
Chishti Sufi saint Nizam al-Din Awliya (d. 1325)
and houses a museum and library.

See also Persian language and literature.

Further reading: Ralph Russell, Ghalib: The Poet and

His Age (London: Allen & Unwin, 1972); , The

Oxford India Ghalib: Life, Letters, and Ghazals (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Ghannoushi, Rashid al- (1941- ) leading

Tunisian activist and founder of the Islamic Tendency
Movement, now known as the Renaissance Party
(Hizb al-Nahda)

Rashid al-Ghannoushi advocates a modernist
interpretation of Islam and the use of nonviolent
means toward establishing Islamic rule. He is
also the leading political opposition figure to the
Tunisian government. Born in 1941 in the village
of al-Hama in southeastern Tunisia, al-Ghan-
noushi was the youngest of eight children. His
father informally taught the Quran and sent his
son to the prestigious Zaytuna University, where
he received a traditional religious education.
Later, at the University of Damascus, he earned
a masters degree in philosophy and began his
involvement in politics, briefly joining a secular
nationalist party. However, any enchantment he
may have had with these ideas dissipated with the
Arab defeat by Israel in 1967 and the unfolding

ghayba 259

of massive student protests in France against the
secular government there in 1968, something he
witnessed firsthand as a philosophy student at the
Sorbonne.

At the core of his ideas is the conviction that
the adoption of nationalism and secularism by
Arabs has weakened their countries and led to a
general crisis of identity in the region. He believes
that the only way for Arabs to enter modernity
is by following the path set by their own reli-
gion, history, and civilization. This was an idea
being espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood,
with whom he had had contact in Damascus, and
one that he would subsequently develop in the
Tunisian context. Al-Ghannoushi spent much of
the 1970s working as a high school philosophy
teacher, meeting with the government-sponsored
Quranic Preservation Society and spreading the
teachings of Islamist thinkers such as Abu al-Ala
Mawdudi (d. 1979), Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949),
and Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966). To their ideas he added
an emphasis on the practical solutions Islam offers
for the spiritual, economic, and political problems
of the day and the necessity for Muslims to pursue
those solutions through activism and innovation.
His message attracted a broad spectrum of people,
including students, leftists, and workers.

With a program of political liberalization initi-
ated in April 1981 by Tunisia's president Habib
Bourguiba, al-Ghannoushi attempted to translate
his following into a political party — the Islamic
Tendency Movement — that could pursue politi-
cal change through peaceful participation in the
country's democratic process. However, his goal
of Islamizing Tunisian society, as well as his broad
appeal, were perceived as a threat by the authori-
ties and resulted in the repeated imprisonment of
al-Ghannoushi and his followers. Al-Ghannoushi
was given a life sentence in 1987 but released
and granted amnesty the following year with the
change of government in Tunis. Throughout the
1990s, relations between the Tunisian state and
its Islamist opposition continued to deteriorate,
with many parties, including al-Nahda, banned

from participation in elections. This was a fate
shared by his contemporaries Ali Abbasi Madani
(b. 1931) of Algeria and Abd al-Salam al-Yasin
(b. 1928) of Morocco, whose own Islamic reform
movements have also been excluded from offi-
cial representation. Al-Ghannoushi now lives in
Britain as a political refugee and continues to be
influential in Islamist thought and politics.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; democracy;

ISLAMISM; POLITICS AND ISLAM; RENEWAL AND REFORM
MOVEMENTS.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Francois Burgat and William Dowell,
The Islamic Movement in North Africa (Austin: Univer-
sity of Texas Press, 1997); Linda G. Jones, “Portrait
of Rashid al-Ghannoushi,” Middle East Report 153
(July-August 1988): 19; Charles Kurzman, ed., Liberal
Islam: A Sourcebook (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988).

ghayba (Arabic: absence)

In Shiism, ghayba refers to the withdrawal, or
occultation, of an individual — most frequently
the Imam, or holy leader — from human sight. This
Imams life can be miraculously elongated while
in this absence, when he is thought to be close to
God. The concept first appeared in Shii circles in
the early eighth century and became connected to
eschatological beliefs concerning the return of the
imam preceding the end time. Among the various
branches of Shiism, the largest group, Twelve-
Imam Shia, believe in a lesser and greater ghayba
of their 12th imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi (b. 868).
Four deputies successively represented this Imam
over the span of about 70 years during his “lesser
ghayba." Immediately preceding the death of the
fourth deputy in 941, this Imam is believed to
have inaugurated “the greater ghayba," which will
continue until shortly before the end of the world.
Until that time, the 12th Imam remains alive on
this earth, concealed. Then, at a time appointed

260 ghazal

by God, he will arise as the Islamic messiah, the
Mahdi, to rule and establish justice on earth until
Judgment Day. Although the death of the fourth
deputy signaled a cessation of formal contact
between the imam and his community, the Hid-
den Imam is thought to be in contact with many
of his followers miraculously, through dreams or
visions. In his absence, authority is exercised by
his representatives, the ulama, who are masters
of religious law and the traditions of the imams.
The most influential group of Shii ulama in recent
times are the Mujtahids, those who can practice
ijtihad, or independent reasoning based on the
principals of F/QH, or Islamic jurisprudence.

The concept of ghayba is shared by other Shia
groups, including the Druze. This religious group,
which developed from Ismaili Shiism, believes in a
lesser and greater ghayba that began with the dis-
appearance of their caliph-imam al-Hakim, whom
they consider to be divine, in 1021.

A doctrine resembling that of ghayba exists
among other Shia groups. This doctrine, known as
satr , ; refers to the concealment of a continuing line
of imams. The Bohra Shiis of India believe that
their imams are in satr.

See also Akhbari School; authority; Twelve-
Imam Shiism; Usuli School.

Jamel Velji

Further reading: Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Hamid Dabashi,
and Seyyed Vali Rcza Nasr. eds., Shi'ism: Doctrines,
Thought, Spirituality (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1988); Wilfcrd Madelung, “Authority in
Twelver Shiism in the Absence of the Imam.” In La notion
d'authorite au M oyen Age: Islam, Byzance , Occident (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1978), 163-173.

ghazal (Arabic; also ghazel , gazal)

A ghazal is a love poem about eternal desire never
fulfilled, in which unrequited and unattainable
love drives the loyal lover to misery. Often, the
lover will be likened to a moth near a candle,

while the beloved is beautiful and inaccessible,
off gallivanting with another or drinking from a
wine goblet. The ghazal can be interpreted both
as a love poem and a devotional poem, for the
pain of separation that one feels from ones lover
is analogous to the pain of separation one feels
from God.

The ghazal is originally a Persian poetic form
that came to India in the 12th century with
Muslim rule and flourished in India during the
Mughal dynasty (1526-1708). The rise of Urdu
as the popular poetic language of north India gave
birth to the Urdu ghazal, which is between five
and 15 couplets long and uses the same rhyme
and refrain throughout the poem. Although an
Urdu ghazal is a single poem, each couplet within
the ghazal is considered a poem in and of itself,
like a pearl in a necklace.

In India, the popularity of the ghazal led
to the development of the mushaira , which is a
gathering of poets who recite ghazal couplets to
one another. The ghazal also evolved into its own
musical form, as ghazal singers began performing
with semiclassical musicians. Early Indian CINEMA
incorporated ghazal music into its commercial
films, making ghazal music popular and acces-
sible to a larger audience.

Although the ghazal has historically been
associated with Islam, it is now an ecumenical
form of poetry adopted by different religious com-
munities. The Urdu ghazal is still the most famous
form and remains popular in Pakistan and India,
but ghazal traditions have emerged in other South
Asian languages as well as in Spanish, Italian, and
English. Among the most famous ghazal poets are
Amir Khusrau (d. 1325), Hafiz (d. 1389), Mir Taqi
Mir (d. 1810), Mirza Ghalib (d. 1869), and Faiz
Ahmed Faiz (d. 1984).

See also PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Varun Soni

Further reading: Agha Shahid Ali. cd.. Ravishing Dis-
unities: Real Ghazals in English (Middletown, Conn.:

Ghazali, Abu Hamid al- 261

Wesleyan University Press, 2000); K. C. Kanda. trans..
Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazal: From the 17th Century
to the 20th Century (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers,
1900); Frances Pritchett, Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry
and Its Critics (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1994).

Ghazali, Abu Hamid al- (also al-Ghazzali;
Latin: Algazel) (1058-1111) one of the most
famous Muslim intellectuals of the Middle Ages , he
wrote important works on Islamic mysticism, theology,
and philosophy that had a lasting effect on medieval
Muslim religious thought

Al-Ghazali was born in the town of Tus, Iran,
where he received his early education before mov-
ing to Nishapur, a major Iranian center of Sunni
learning in the 11th and 12th centuries. Among
his most famous teachers in Nishapur was al-
Juwayni (d. 1085), a renowned scholar of Ashari
THEOLOGY and Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). Al-
Ghazali remained in Nishapur until al-Juwayni
died. Then he joined the circle of scholars patron-
ized by Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), the powerful
Seljuk Turkish vizier of the Abbasid Empire,
lie soon became one of the leading scholars of
Baghdad, and in 1091, he was one of the first
teachers appointed to the faculty of the new Niza-
miyya College (madrasa) there, where he taught
Shafii law. It is reported that some of his lectures
attracted up to 300 students, an unusually large
number for a medieval school. Al-Ghazalis public
success as a scholar and teacher caused him to
question his motives and the sincerity of his faith,
so that in 1095, he found himself unable to speak
or carry on with his work. This spiritual crisis led
to his resigning his position, leaving his family,
and setting out on an 11-year sabbatical in Syria.
During this time, his explorations focused on
the ways and teachings of Sufism. In his spiritual
autobiography, al-Ghazali wrote about what he
discovered during this lengthy retreat: Of all the
various schools of religion in Islam, “I knew with
certainty that the Sufis are uniquely those who

follow the way to God Most High, their mode of
life is the best of all, their way the most direct of
ways, and their ethic the purist" (Ghazali, 56).
He returned to teaching briefly at the Nishapur
madrasa and founded a Sufi hospice ( khanqah ) in
his hometown, Tus, where he spent his last days.

Al-Ghazali acquired deep knowledge of many
areas of Islamic religious thought and approached
his subjects in a systematic manner. Scholars
have identified him as the author of about 60
books. His most famous one was The Revival of
the Religious Sciences (ca. 1097), a wide-ranging
work that sought to wed Islamic practice with
theological and mystical truths. Written during
his long retreat, it is organized into four parts:
1) the Five Pillars of Islam and their spiritual
significance; 2) how to morally conduct one's
daily affairs — such as dietary practices, marriage,
work, traveling, and listening to music — so as to
come closer to God; 3) how to discipline the self
to eliminate human weaknesses such as desire,
slander, envy, and greed that lead to damnation;
and 4) how to purify the human soul and pursue
the path toward God and salvation. The last part
also includes vivid descriptions of DEATH and the
afterlife, the ultimate destiny of all humans.

Two other well-known books, The Incoherence
of the Philosophers (ca. 1095) and The Deliverer
from Error (ca. 1108), display al-Ghazalis knowl-
edge both of the theological and philosophical
traditions of his times and of the differing points
of view held by scholars and men of religion. In
these works, he sought to demonstrate logically
what he thought were the fallacies and shortcom-
ings of the philosophers and lsmaili theologians.
Defending the Ashari School of theology to which
he belonged, he maintained that religious truths
pertaining to God, creation, and the soul could
not be adequately fathomed by the rational mind
apart from revelation. In al-Ghazalis opinion, the
arguments of Muslim philosophers such as al-
Farabi (d. 950) and Ibn Sina (d. 1037) against the
existence of individual souls and belief in a bodily
resurrection were in conflict with quranic truths,

262 Ghazali, Zaynab al-

as was their position on the eternity of the world.
Al-Ghazali’s main critique of the Ismaili Shia, who
were posing a serious threat to Sunni hegemony
during the 11th and 12th centuries, was that they
gave too much authority to their Imams. Believ-
ers only had to recognize God’s existence and
adhere to the sunna of Muhammad to conduct
their lives. Moreover, al-Ghazali cautioned against
allowing commoners to engage in theological or
philosophical speculation because it would harm
their chances for salvation. He also criticized the
exaggerated claims of Sufi mystics, who spoke of
divine knowledge and complete annihilation of
the self in God. Only God can fully know himself,
he wrote, and annihilation, if achieved at all, was
only for the moment.

Al-Ghazali's contributions to the history of
Islamic thought and mysticism are still being
debated today. Many recognize that his writings
helped give new meaning to Muslim practices by
conjoining them to Sufi values and insights. The
use of logical argumentation in his theological
writings set a standard for later Muslim theo-
logians to follow. Al-Ghazali’s bold criticisms
of Muslim philosophers echoed throughout the
Muslim intellectual world and obliged Ibn RUSHD
(d. 1198), the Andalusian philosopher-jurist,
to write a retort entitled The Incoherence of the
Incoherence. On the negative side, he may have
contributed to the decline of Islamic philosophi-
cal reflection by the forcefulness of his theologi-
cally based arguments against many of its main
tenets.

See also Allah; ethics and morality; Ismaili
Shiism; philosophy; Shafu Legal School.

Further reading: Massimo Cainpanini. “Al-Ghazzali." In
History of Islamic Philosophy , edited by Seyyed llossein
Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 258-274 (London: Routledge,
1996); Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Al-Ghazali's Path to Sufism:
His Deliverance from Error, al-Munqidh min al-dalal. Trans-
lated by R. J. McCarthy (Louisville, Ky.: Fons Vitae,
2000); W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of
al-Ghazali (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953).

Ghazali, Zaynab al- (1917-2005) the most
important female leader in the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood during the 20th century and founder of
the Society of Muslim Ladies

Zaynab al-Ghazali was the daughter of a mer-
chant and Islamic teacher who was educated at
the famous al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.
She studied the Quran, quranic commentary
(tafsir) and hadith at home in her youth but
never attained more than a secondary school
education. She became a member of Huda
Shaarawi's Egyptian Feminist Union, the coun-
try's first organized women's rights movement.
Dissatisfied with the liberal, secular orientation
of this movement, in 1936, she quit it when she
was 18 years of age and launched the Society
of Muslim Ladies, which sought to promote
piety among women and address social prob-
lems within an Islamic framework. As part of its
daawa (Muslim outreach) activities, this organi-
zation conducted religious classes for women at
mosques, trained them to preach, and provided
social services to the needy. It also published a
journal for Muslim women from 1954 to 1956
called al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat (Muslim women).
Al-Ghazali said that when the Egyptian govern-
ment forced her to disband the organization in
1964, the association's membership had grown
to 3 million throughout the country. In 1949,
she joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the invi-
tation of its founder, Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949),
and her society worked in cooperation with the
Muslim Sisters to help families who suffered
from the campaign Abd al-Nasir, Egypt's presi-
dent from 1956 to 1970, was waging against the
brotherhood in the 1950s and early 1960s. She
conducted secret meetings with the brotherhood
and their supporters to study Islamic literature
and discuss plans for bringing about Islamic
government. She is credited with helping to dis-
seminate the writings of the Islamic ideologist
Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), which were composed
during the years of his imprisonment for engag-
ing in antigovernment activities.

Ghulam Ahmad 263

She was sentenced to 25 years of prison in
1965 for conspiring to overthrow Egypt's govern-
ment but served only six. Al-Ghazalis memoirs
about her prison years were published in 1977
(published in English as Return of the Pharaoh:
Memoirs in Nasirs Prison). In this autobiographi-
cal account, she described how her faith helped
her withstand the horrible tortures she suffered at
the hands of government agents, and she denied
charges that the brotherhood had ever conspired
to overthrow the government violently. Anwar
al-Sadat (r. 1970-81) freed al-Ghazali and other
members of the brotherhood after he became
president as part of a strategy to win support of
Muslim activists. He needed them to consolidate
power and undermine the influence of the late
Abd al-Nasirs supporters, many of whom were
Arab socialists. After her release, al-Ghazali con-
tinued an active career of teaching and writing for
Islamic periodicals. Her articles on women and
family life urged women to educate themselves
about what she held to be Islam's true values,
arguing that the religion offers both women and
men all their rights and that they do not have to
turn to the West to obtain them. She hoped that
by cultivating Islamic values at home, women
could contribute to the moral and political trans-
formation of the wider society. In her later years,
al-Ghazali avoided overt political activity but
worked on a Quran commentary. Al-Ghazali
was married twice, divorcing her first husband
because he had interfered with her JIHAD and mar-
rying the second only after he had agreed not to
interfere with her daawa activities. She never had
children.

See also Islamism; Shaarawi, Huda.

Further reading: Zainab al-Ghazali, Return of the Pha-
raoh: Memoirs in Nasirs Prison. Translated by Mokran
Guezzou (Broughton Gifford. U.K.: Cromwell Press,
1994); Valerie J. Hoffman. "An Islamist Activist: Zaynab
al-Ghazali." In Women and the Family in the Middle East ,
edited by Elisabeth Warnock Fernea, 233-254 (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1985); Saba Mahmood, Poli-

tics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
(Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005).

Ghulam Ahmad (ca. 1830-1908) the self-
proclaimed Mahdi and founder of the Ahmadiyya
movement of Islam in colonial India
Ghulam Ahmad, also called Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Qadiani, founded an Islamic missionary revival
movement in British India known as the Ahmadi-
yya in 1889. He came from a prosperous family of
Sunni Muslim landowners in the small town of
Qadian in the Punjab region of northern India. He
received a good education but resisted his fathers
wishes that he become a lawyer or work for the
British colonial government. Instead, Ghulam
Ahmad pursued a religious life — for a period of
about 20 years he claimed to receive revelations
from God, and through his writings and mission-
ary efforts he attracted a following that grew to
about 20,000 members by the time of his death
in 1908.

At the end of the 19th century, several Muslim
empires were coming to an end. Muslim lands
were increasingly falling under the direct or indi-
rect control of European colonial powers, and
Christian missionaries from Europe were seeking
converts among Muslims. Ghulam Ahmad was
among those Muslims who felt that their religion
needed to be revived and reformed in order to sur-
vive. He saw himself as "the light of this dark age,"
a "rightly guided one" (Mahdi), and the peace-
ful renewer of the religion, who was expected to
appear at the beginning of the 14th century on the
Islamic calendar (1300 A.H. coincided with 1882
on the Western calendar). His followers, especially
the Qadiani branch of the Ahmadiyya move-
ment, also think that Ghulam Ahmad claimed
to be a prophet, which has offended other Mus-
lims because a central Islamic belief is that there
can be no prophets after Muhammad (d. 632).
In response to this criticism, the Qadianis have
argued that there are two kinds of prophet: those
who bring God's law and those who make it work.

'Css^

264 ghulat

Muhammad, they claim, was the last to bring Gods
law, but Ghulam Ahmad was among the prophets
chosen to revive it and make it work. Another of
his controversial teachings was that Jesus did not
die on the cross but survived the crucifixion and
escaped to Kashmir (northern India), where he
died and was buried. Thus, the promised mcs-
siah was Ghulam Ahmad, not Jesus, a claim that
offended Christian missionaries in British India
as well as Muslim authorities. Also, members of
the Hindu community in northern India objected
to his assertion that he was an incarnation of the
Hindu god Krishna. Despite strong opposition
and persecution, the movement Ghulam Ahmad
launched has now reached many countries around
the world and has an estimated membership of
more than 10 million. His male heirs continue to
serve as the leaders of the Qadiani branch of the
Ahmadiyya. Their current leader is Mirza Masroor
Ahmad (b. 1950), Ghulam Ahmads great grand-
son, who became the Ahmadiyya caliph after his
father, Mirza Tahir Ahmad, died in 2003.

Sec also authority; Christianity and Islam;
colonialism; Hinduism and Islam; renewal and

REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Further reading: Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Con-
tinuous: Aspects of Ahniadi Religious Thought and Its
Medieval Background (Berkeley: University of California
Press. 1989); Muhammad Zafrullah Khan, Ahmadiyyat:
The Renaissance of Islam (London: Tabshir Publications,
1978).

ghulat (Arabic “to exaggerate,” “to exceed
the proper bounds”)

The ghulat were early radical Shii groups known
for their exaggerated beliefs about God, Ali IBN
Abi Talib (d. 661), and other Shii Imams. Ali was
the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, whom
the Shia consider to have been the rightful heir
to the leadership of Islam after the Prophet's
death. The ghulat deified Ali and believed that
he was a superhuman being with miraculous

powers. The term ghali (pi. ghulat) was used
disparagingly by mainstream Muslims to refer to
supporters of these beliefs. Such doctrines were
considered heretical to Sunni and later moderate
Shii authorities, who consider God to be one and
not incarnate in human beings.

When these extremist doctrines about Ali
spread to newly Islamized areas such as Iraq,
Iran, Anatolia, and Central Asia during the eighth
century, they were mixed with pre-Islamic and
Christian beliefs, such as reincarnation, resurrec-
tion, and the Christian Trinity (God, Jesus, and the
Holy Spirit). A variety of sects that applied such
views to the veneration of Ali and the 12 Imams
arose, many of which survive today, such as the
Alawis (Nusayris) in Syria, the Ahl-i Haqq (People
of the Divine Truth) in Iran, the Alevis in Turkey,
and the Shabak in northern Iraq. While some
believers within these groups may equate Ali with
God, it is more common for them to place Ali in a
spiritual trinity along with Allah and Muhammad
or to see Ali as a manifestation of God. These sects
have been influenced by Sufism in their beliefs
and ritual practices, and most require members to
undergo an initiation ceremony.

Since these sects are considered heretical by
orthodox Muslim authorities, they have often
been persecuted. They therefore practice in secret
and often resort to concealing or even denying
their true beliefs from outsiders, employing the
Shii tactic of taqiyya (dissimulation).

See also Alawi; batin ; imam; Shiism.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Krisztina Kchl-Bodrogi, Barbara Kell-
ncr-Hcinkcle, and Anke Otter-Bcaujean, eds., Syncretis-
tic Religious Communities in the Near East (New York:
E.J. Brill. 1997); Matti Moosa, Extremist Shiites: The
Ghulat Sects (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,
1988).

ghusl See Ablution.

Gospel 265

God See Allah.

A goddess is a female form of deity found in many
of the worlds religions. She is usually paired with
a male god and commonly included within a poly-
theistic religious system. The goddesses of ancient
Egypt and Mesopotamia were associated with the
natural world — earth, fertility, plants, animals,
the sky, and the planets. Some, such as Ishtar of
Iraq and Isis of Egypt, were worshipped as protec-
tors of the king and his household. When Islam
appeared in the seventh century, most forms of
goddess worship had either disappeared or been
assimilated by Christianity. The Virgin Mary and
Jesus, for example, were portrayed like Isis hold-
ing the infant Horus in the iconography of early
Christian Egypt. Nevertheless, traditional goddess
worship did continue in the more remote regions
of the Middle East, including the Arabian Penin-
sula, where it disappeared after it encountered the
new religion of Islam.

The three most popular goddesses in pre-
Islamic Arabia were al-Lat, Manat, and al-Uzza,
sometimes called the daughters of Allah. Al-Lat
(possibly the female counterpart of the Arabian
high god Allah) was worshipped by Arab tribes
in much of the peninsula. Her main temple was
located in Taif, a town in the mountains southeast
of Mecca, where she was worshipped in the form
of a rock that was shaped like the Kaaba. Manat, a
very ancient goddess, was worshipped by the Arabs
of Mecca, Medina (Yathrib), and the surrounding
territories. She may have been a local form of the
goddess Ishtar, and her name suggests that she
had power over human fortunes and destinies. A
sacred site for her statue was created in a coastal
town near Medina, and members of Medina's lead-
ing tribes would go there to shave their heads on
their return from pilgrimage to Mecca. Al-Uzza
(the mighty one) was worshipped in northern
Arabia and Syria, perhaps as a local version of
the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite. Her shrine

was located on the road between Mecca and Taif,
where there was a grove of sacred trees. People
went there on pilgrimage to conduct sacrifices and
consult oracles. Just before Muhammad began his
mission, the Quraysh tribe, the most powerful in
Mecca, consolidated the worship of all three god-
desses at the Kaaba. After 630, once Muslims had
won control of western Arabia, they destroyed the
images and shrines of these goddesses.

The idea of the woman as an embodiment of
holiness did not end with the coming of Islam,
however. The veneration of female saints, par-
ticularly those descended from the House of the
Prophet (ahl al-bayt ), such as Fatima and Zaynab
bint Ali ibn Abi Talib, is found in many Muslim
lands among both Sunnis and Shiis. Moreover,
the female beloved portrayed in Sufi literature
was a symbol of the beautiful qualities of God,
even though she was not explicitly called a god-
dess. Lastly, Muslims in certain parts of India
participate in rituals held at the temples of Hindu
goddesses. Such beliefs and practices arc strongly
condemned by strict followers of Islam, particu-
larly those influenced by Wahhabi doctrines and
Islamic modernism.

See also Arabian religions, pre-1slamic; Satanic
Verses; Wahhabism; women.

Further reading: Hisham ibn Kalbi, The Booh of Idols.
Translated by N. A. Faris (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1952); Manjhan, Madhumalati: An Indian
Sufi Romance. Translated by Aditya Behl and Simon
Weightman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); E
E. Peters. The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam (Aider-
shot, U.K., and Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1999).

good and evil See ethics and morality.

Gospel (Arabic: injil)

The Quran and Muslims refer to the entire New
Testament as the Gospel, not just the first four
books of that section of the Bible. The Quran

266 government, Islamic

could be interpreted as suggesting that the Gospel
is a sacred text that God revealed to JESUS, as he
revealed the Torah to Moses and the Quran to
Muhammad. This relationship with other sacred
scriptures is evidenced by the fact that nine of the
12 times the Gospel is mentioned in the Quran, it
occurs in relation to the Torah (Arabic: al-tawrat ),
the Jewish sacred text. However, Muslims have
also maintained that the Torah and the Gospel, as
Jews and Christians have received them, contain
errors and omissions, while the entire Quran is
absolutely perfect and complete.

While there are four Gospels in the New Testa-
ment and, according to Christians, they constitute
one of several kinds of literature in that section
of the Bible, the Quran uses the Arabic singular
of Gospel. There is another significant difference
between Christian and Muslim understandings of
Gospel or Gospels. Christians view the Gospels as
the proclamation of the “good news" of salvation
that God offers to human beings through Jesus,
while Muslims understand Gospel as containing
God’s laws and ethics, together with prophecies
concerning Muhammad's coming.

In terms of similarities and differences regard-
ing the Quran's view of the Gospel and the
Gospels as they appear in the New Testament,
several Quranic verses overlap significantly with
material in all or some of the four New Testa-
ment Gospels. Other quranic passages contain
ideas and symbols that are similar to noncanoni-
cal gospels and other Christian texts. A number
of other statements that the Quran attributes to
Jesus as well as stories about him do not have
any substantial similarity to the Gospels or any
other Christian texts. Thus, textually there are
numerous similarities and differences in terms of
ideas and symbols in the Quran's representation
of the Gospel and the Gospels as they appear in
the New Testament.

See also Christianity and Islam; holy books;
Judaism and Islam.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: Kenneth Cragg. A Certain Sympathy
of Scriptures: Biblical and Quranic (Brighton, U.K., and
Portland, Ore.: Sussex Academic Press, 2004); John C.
Reeves, ed., Bible and Quran: Essays in Scriptural Inter -
textuality (Leiden and Boston: E.J. Brill, 2004).

government, Islamic

Only about 10 percent of the Quran deals with
government or legislative matters. Therefore,
Muslims have relied on the words and actions of
Muhammad (d. 632) as transmitted in the hadith
literature to provide much of the basis for Islamic
law (sharia and fiqh) and government. Since
Muhammad was both a religious and political
leader, Muslims generally agree that government
and law should be Islamic. There is a large degree
of consensus over what constitutes Islamic law,
but much less over what qualifies as Islamic gov-
ernment. Consequently, many governments, past
and present, base their claim to be Islamic on the
degree to which they support and enforce sharia.

After Muhammad's death, the government was
led by his key companions, who became the first
four caliphs and were able to continue to model
religious and political AUTHORITY based on their
close relationship with Muhammad. But with the
rapid expansion of the Arab-lslamicate empire,
the caliphate became more political and secular.
At the same time, the first generation of Muslims
was passing away. Both events highlighted the
need for greater systemization of the sharia in
order to guide the ruler and the community. In
the process, the ULAMA (religious scholars) greatly
increased their authority as the definers of Islamic
law but also supported the caliph for the sake of
unity and continuity. In the medieval period, most
people accepted that the government could claim
to be Islamic as long as it supported and defended
the sharia, regardless of the character of the ruler
himself or his administration.

In order to strengthen their religious legiti-
macy, rulers have often claimed to support Islamic
law while all the while encroaching on its author-

Granada 267

ity. In the medieval period, rulers established a
parallel system of courts that enabled them to
side-step the sharia. Many Muslim countries in
the modern period have based the primary law
code of the land on Western models. Sharia is
limited to the arena of personal status laws, those
dealing with divorce, inheritance, marriage, and
the family. The degree to which people are satis-
fied with this or desire a greater application of
the sharia often depends on the political and eco-
nomic conditions in a particular country.

While a few reformers call for a return of the
caliphate, many argue that Islamic principles such
as shura (consultation) and maslaha (general wel-
fare) support the ideal of an Islamic DEMOCRACY.
Most activists and reformers who call for Islamic
government are concerned primarily with the
sharia becoming the law of the country — at least
for its Muslim citizens. This is based on a belief
that the sharia is divinely ordained and when
properly interpreted and applied will bring about
just and equitable society. However, Islamic politi-
cal theorists are still debating the key question of
who should have the authority to interpret and
enforce sharia.

See also Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979;
Islamism; politics and Islam; Saudi Arabia.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Antony Black, The History of Islamic
Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present (New
York: Routledge, 2001); Mohammad Asghar Khan,
Islam , Politics , and the State: the Pakistan Experience
(London: Zed Books, 1985); Ann Lambton, State and
Government in Medieval Islam (1981. Reprint, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995).

Granada

The city of Granada (Arabic: Gharnata) is the cap-
ital of the province of Granada in Andalusia and
has a population of 250,000. Its strategic location
at the confluence of the Darro and Genii Rivers
and at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains

accounts for its continuous settlement since pre-
historic times. During the early period of Islamic
rule, Granada's population was largely Jewish
(hence the Arabic epithet “Granada of the Jews").
Granada gained prominence as an lslamicate city
following the fragmentation of the Ummayyad
Caliphate into petty kingdoms after 1013. A Ber-
ber general, Ibn Ziri (d. 1025), founded the Zirid
kingdom, making Granada its urban center and
the Alhambra its royal capital.

The Almoravid dynasty deposed the Zirids in
1090 and ruled until their defeat by the Almohad
dynasty in 1166. Spanish Muslims, led by Ibn al-
Hud, overthrew the Almohad leader al-Mamun
(ca. 1232). Subsequently, Muhammad Ibn al-
Ahmar wrested power from Ibn al-Hud, establish-
ing the Nasrid dynasty in 1238.

Ibn Ziri founded Granada's Great Mosque,
whose beauty rivalled those of Seville and Cor-
doba. He also built the Old Casbah (fortress),
which enclosed the royal palace and the com-
mercial and residential quarters. Granada was
surrounded by orchards of pomegranate (Granada
means pomegranate in Spanish) and other trees,
and the soil was so fertile it yielded crops bian-
nually. The most lucrative industries were textiles
(silk, wool, linen, cotton) and gold- and silver-
smithing.

The 13th-century Christian conquests reduced
Andalusia to the tiny kingdom of Granada, which
extended from Algcciras to Almeria. Surrounded
by enemies, the Nasrid kingdom owed its lon-
gevity to its vassalage to Castile, its astuteness in
pitting one foe against another (Castile, Aragon,
North Africa), and Christian dynastic wars (1350-
1412). Weakened by decades of internal strife,
Abu Abd Allah (Boabdilla) finally surrendered
Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.

The Nasrid period is justifiably called the
golden age of lslamicate culture in Spain. The
Maliki and Sufi underpinnings of the Nasrid
dynasty are especially noteworthy. Muhammad I
deployed Sufi symbols to legitimate his author-
ity and consolidated his rule on the edifice of the

,CssSD 268 Gulen, Fethullah

Maliki Legal School. The Nasrid slogan “those
who make [Islam] victorious through God" (in
Arabic Nasr means victory) mitigated Granada's
vassalage to Castile and epitomized the ideology
of a frontier territory threatened by Christian (and
Muslim) enemies.

The architectural expression of Nasrid “vic-
tory" is the Alhambra fortress (Arabic: al-Hamra
“the red," referring to its reddish hue). Perched
atop Sabika Hill, the Alhambra was a fortress
and royal capital. Muhammad I began the con-
struction of the Alhambra complex, and it was
completed during the reign of Muhammad V (d.
1391). Nasrid Granada's population was over-
whelmingly Muslim since most native Christians
and Jews had migrated to Christian Iberia. The
capitulation agreement of 1492 allowed the Mus-
lims to retain their customs, but these rights were
successively rescinded. Granada's mosques were
confiscated, and some 70,000 Muslims were forc-
ibly baptized and prohibited from using Moorish
dress, language, and customs. In the wake of Mus-
lim revolts in 1501 and 1568 and the evidence
of their continued Islamic practices, Felipe 111
decreed their expulsion from Spain, which trans-
pired between 1609 and 1614.

See also cities; Christianity and Islam; Sufism.

Linda G. Jones

Further reading: Abd Allah b. Buluggin. The Tibyan:
Memoirs of Abd Allah b. Buluggin, the Last Zirid Emir of
Granada. Translated and edited by Amin T. Tibi (Leiden:

E. J. Brill. 1986); L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Bernard

F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993).

Gulen, Fethullah (1941- ) leading Islamic

reformist thinker and preacher from Turkey
Born in a farming village near Erzurum in eastern
Turkey, Fethullah Gulen, affectionately known
to his followers as Hoja efendi (a Turkish title of

respect), obtained his early EDUCATION at home, at
primary school, and from religious teachers. He
regards his mother as his first teacher and credits
his father, Ramiz Gulen, for teaching him Arabic.
He is reported to have memorized the Quran at an
early age. Although Sufi organizations had been
banned in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
in 1925, his teachers included several who had
been affiliated with the reformist Naqshbandi Sufi
Order. He also studied nonreligious subjects such
as modern science, philosophy, and history.

Gulen began to give sermons in local settings
when he was 16 and was greatly influenced by the
teachings of Said Nursi (d. 1960), a prominent
Muslim modernist thinker of Kurdish heritage
who was advocating the compatibility of modern
science and knowledge with Islam in Turkey.
A pious young man, Gulen received his first
appointment in 1959 as the imam at the prominent
Ucscrcfcli Mosque in Edirne, western Turkey. He
served there for two and a half years, then per-
formed his Turkish military service. When he got
out, he held various positions and gave talks on
religious and political subjects throughout the
country, concerned at the time with growing com-
munist influence. Inspired by Said Nursi and the
Nurcu movement, he favored the development of
an ideological alternative to the secular Turkish
nationalism of Ataturk (called Kemalism). His
tape-recorded sermons gained wide circulation
and were especially well received by university
students. After a military coup in 1971, Gulen
was sentenced to prison for three years for his
outreach activities. But this did not curtail his
popularity, and, in 1975, he organized conferences
dealing with the Quran, science, and Darwin-
ism. It is said that young people from throughout
Turkey flocked to hear his sermons and lectures.
During the 1980s, after another military coup,
Turkish authorities continued to monitor his
activities, even raiding his home. He was able to
act more openly in the 1990s because of main-
stream acceptance of religious parties such as the
Refah Party in Turkish politics. Giilcn had public

Gulf States 269

meetings with high government officials in Tur-
key and was instrumental in the establishment of
the Journalists and Writers Foundation in 1994.
He also gained the attention of the international
media due to his involvement in Turkish politics
and his endorsement of democracy, pluralism,
and interreligious dialogue. His outreach to other
religious communities is evident in the meet-
ings he has held with leading representatives of
Turkey's Jewish and Christian communities and
his audience with Pope John Paul II in 1998. He is
credited with having written more than 60 books,
mostly in Turkish, published frequent journal and
magazine articles, and recorded many audio and
video cassettes.

Gulen has performed the HAJJ several times
since his first visit to Mecca in 1968. He has also
visited Europe and the United States, where he
has lived since 1999. He receives medical care
there but continues to serve as an inspiration for
his followers in Turkey and around the world. He
has taken a strong stand against radical Islamism.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001,
attacks in the United States, he issued a statement
to the media declaring, “Terror can never be used
in the name of Islam or for the sake of any Islamic
ends. A Muslim can only be the representative and
symbol of peace, welfare, and prosperity” (Gulen,
2002 ).

The Gulen movement (also known as the
Fethullahcilar) has achieved remarkable advances
since the 1990s. It has established 250 schools in
Turkey, southeastern Europe, Turkic parts of Cen-
tral Asia, and other parts of the world. The curri-
cula of the movement's schools, which enroll large
numbers of children from rural and working-class
backgrounds, emphasize a progressive attitude to
modernity and religion with the objective of mak-
ing the world a better place for all. In 1997, the
movement opened Fatih University, a private uni-
versity on the outskirts of Istanbul, which has fac-
ulties in the humanities, social sciences, business,
sciences, engineering, and vocational studies. A
branch in Ankara, Turkey's capital, has schools

of medicine, nursing, and vocational studies. The
movements members have opened centers in
several American cities, where they conduct inter-
faith activities, lectures, conferences, and Turkish
cultural programs. Many of the movement's male
members, who call each other “brother" (abi), are
involved in international education, business, and
professional careers. Women in the movement,
who typically wear headscarves, are well educated
and play visible and active roles in community
life. It also operates Zaman (Time), a leading
Turkish newspaper, and a satellite television sta-
tion that produces educational and entertainment
programming in Turkish that reflects Gulen's reli-
gious and ethical ideals.

See also daawa ; renewal and reform move-
ments; secularism.

Further reading: Bulent Aras and Omer Caha, “Fethul-
lah Gulen and His Liberal Turkish Islam Movement,"
Middle East Review of International Affairs 4, no. 4
(2000): 30-42; Mucahit Bilici, “The Fethullah Gulen
Movement and Its Politics of Representation in Turkey,"
Muslim World 96, no. 1 (2006): 1-20; Fethullah Gulen,
Essays, Perspectives, Opinions. Rev. cd. (Somerset, N.J.:

The Light, 2004); , The Statue of Our Souls:

Revival in Islamic Thought and Activism. Translated by
Muhammad Cretin (Somerset, N.J.: The Light, 2005);
M. Hakan Yavuz and John L. Esposito, eds., Turkish
Islam and the Secular State: The Gulen Movement (Syra-
cuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2003).

Gulf States

The Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf,
especially by Arabs) is a strategic body of water
about 93,000 square miles in area (slightly less
than the size of Oregon) separating the Ara-
bian Peninsula from Iran. Its northwestern shore
receives the outflow from the Tigris and Euphra-
tes Rivers, and it opens to the Indian Ocean at the
Strait of Hormuz, located 615 miles to the south-
east. The gulf is surrounded by eight countries —
Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar,

' Css ^ 270 Gulf States

the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Oman. The
landmass occupied by these states collectively is
1.8 million square miles, or half the landmass of
the United States. The individual Persian Gulf
countries range in size from the smallest, Bahrain
(the size of Washington, D.C.) and Qatar (the size
of Connecticut), to the largest, Iran (the size of
Alaska) and Saudi Arabia (one-third the size of the
United States). The total population of the region
is about 130 million, or slightly less than half
that of the United States. Iran, with 65.8 million
people (2008 estimate), has the largest population
by far of all the Gulf countries, followed by Iraq
(28.2 million) and Saudi Arabia (28.1 million,
including 5.6 million nonnationals).

This is a very diverse region with respect to
religion, culture, politics, and economics. It has
been home to several civilizations plus a major
crossroads for others, linking Asia with the Middle
East and Europe and the Indian Ocean with the
Mediterranean. It is populated by city dwellers,
nomads, farmers, and, in modern times, immi-
grants from many parts of the world. The immi-
grants come especially from South Asia, attracted
by employment opportunities in the OIL industry
that developed there in the latter part of the 20th
century or by jobs in the commercial sector. Pre-
viously best known for its agriculture, spices,
pearl fisheries, cities of commerce, and pilgrimage
networks, the Gulf region today is the center of
the petroleum industry. It has more than half the
world's proven oil reserves, and it produces about
a third of the worlds oil. The native population
is mainly Persian speaking on the eastern side of
the Gulf and Arabic speaking on the western side.
The majority belongs to the Twelve-Imam branch
ol Shii Islam, especially in Iran, Iraq, and Bahrain,
but there is also a significant Sunni Muslim pres-
ence. The IBADIYYA, an off-shoot of the Khawarij,
the earliest Muslim sect, are a majority in Oman.
All the major Islamic legal schools are present in
the Gulf region, led by the Jaafari Legal School
among the Shia and the Hanbali Legal School
among the Sunnis, as well as a significant number

of Hanafis and Malikis. Wahhabism, a particularly
puritanical branch of the Hanbali tradition based
in Saudi Arabia, is very influential among Sunni
populations in the Gulf region. The Gulf is home
to several of Islam's most treasured holy cities —
Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, Najaf and
Karbala in Iraq, and Mashhad in Iran. Non-Mus-
lim religious communities are also found there,
including Christians, Hindus, Bahais, Buddhists,
Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and Jews.

The modern Gulf states all arose during the
20th century. Prior to that time, the most impor-
tant countries with a long history of state control
were Iran and Iraq, which were ruled by Mus-
lim dynasties such as the Umayyads, Abbasids,
Scljuks, Ottomans, and Safavids. An Indian Ocean
empire based on trade was commanded by the rul-
ers of Oman during the 19th century. Yet much of
the Arabian Peninsula, and even significant parts
of Iran and Iraq, have been controlled by differ-
ent tribal groups and confederations. Today the
major regional powers are the Islamic Republic
of Iran, the Republic of Iraq, and the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia (treated elsewhere in this volume).
The smaller Arab Gulf states are the Kingdom
of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of
Oman, the State of Qatar, and the UAE. All of
these states took present form after a period of
British hegemony during the 19th century, when
local tribal shaykhs became British clients pro-
tected by the Royal Navy. Britain essentially ran
the foreign affairs and defense of these countries
until it acceded to their independence after World
War II. Even with their formal independence,
however, the smaller Gulf States have continued
to rely on alliances with greater powers, such
as the United States, for their survival. Oil has
given them a great deal of economic security, but
it has also made them vulnerable to international
political forces and regional insurgencies. Since
1981, one major revolution and three major wars
have been fought in the Gulf region. Therefore, to
improve their strategic security, affirm their com-
mon interests, and coordinate their relations, the

Gulf States 271

five smaller Arab Gulf States, plus Saudi Arabia,
formed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on
May 25, 1981. For political and strategic reasons,
Iran and Iraq are conspicuously absent from this
regional alliance.

BAHRAIN

The smallest of the Gulf States, the island nation
of Bahrain has a population of 718,306 (2008
est.), more than 235,000 of whom are nonnation-
als. The majority (70 percent) consists of follow-
ers of Twelve-Imam Shiism who maintain close
ties to Shii religious centers in Iraq and Iran. The
government is controlled by the Sunni A1 Khalifa,
a merchant family. Bahrain has been subject in the
past to Portuguese and British rule, but it achieved
independence in 1971, when it became officially
known as the State of Bahrain. At that time, a
constitution was approved and an elected national
assembly was created, but it was disbanded in
1975. It was then ruled as a conservative shaykh-
dom (emirate) until 2002, when the government
was reclassified as a monarchy and the national
assembly was reconstituted in response to Shii
demands for more participation in governance.

KUWAIT

Situated on the western side of where the Shalt
al-Arab waterway empties into the Persian Gulf,
Kuwait is bordered by Iraq to the north and Saudi
Arabia to the south. Its population is 2.6 million
(2008 est.), of whom as many as 60 percent are
nonnationals. Most of the people are Sunni Mus-
lims and followers of the Maliki Legal School.
About 25 percent are adherents of Twelve-Imam
Shiism; many of the country's wealthy merchants
are Shiis with roots in Iraq and Iran. There is
a mixed population of non-Muslim residents,
including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and
Sikhs. Kuwait's ruling family is the Al Sabah, who
are Sunni Arabs. They have played a leading role
in Kuwaiti affairs since the 18th century, when
Kuwait City, the capital, emerged as a regional
commercial center. Once closely allied to Otto-

man authorities in southern Iraq, they agreed to
become a British protectorate in 1899. The coun-
try achieved independence in 1961, and its gov-
ernment is classified as a constitutional monarchy,
which consists of a ruling emir from the Al Sabbah
and a national assembly. In reaction to opposition
and criticism from the assembly, however, the
emir has intervened to disband it several times
since the 1960s. Shiis in Kuwait became politically
active in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution
of 1978-1979. Some Shii radicalism was stirred
up by pro-Iranian agents, but activism has also
come about as a result of Shii frustration with the
lack of a proportional voice in national affairs. The
government has occasionally resorted to harsh
countermeasures, and eruptions of violence have
occurred. Sunni Islamist groups, some affiliated
with the Muslim Brotherhood, have also formed
there. The government, as a result, has made some
concessions to such groups, such as supporting
conservative Islamic legislation with respect to
womens rights and alcohol consumption.

From August 1990 to March 1991, Iraq invaded
and annexed Kuwait on the orders of Saddam
Husayn, Iraq's president. Although the Al Sabah
were able to escape, many Kuwaitis and nonna-
tionals suffered. The occupation was ended by an
armed international coalition of forces authorized
by the United Nations. During the 1990s, Kuwait
supported efforts to contain Husayn's regime, and
it allowed the country to be used as a staging area
for the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq by a
second armed coalition, led by the United States
and Britain.

OMAN

Located at the southeastern end of the Arabian
Peninsula at the Strait of Hormuz and on the
shores of the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea,
the Sultanate of Oman is the third-largest country
in the region. The UAE borders it in the north-
west, Saudi Arabia in the west, and Yemen in the
southwest. The country, whose capital is Musqat,
is ruled by a member of the Al Bu Said family,

272 Gulf States

which has been in power since the 18th century.
The ruler was originally called a SAYY1D, but this
title was later changed to sultan. Until the 1950s,
the country's interior was ruled by a more religious
figure, also from the Al Bu Said, called an imam.
Like other parts of the Arabian Peninsula, Oman
was Islamized during the seventh century. Early in
the 19th century, it became a commercial empire
that dominated the Indian Ocean trade. It gained
possessions on the coasts of East Africa, the
Persian Gulf, Iran, and present-day Pakistan. The
coming of European steam-powered ships, grow-
ing British influence in the region, and internal
political disputes brought this empire to an end
by the end of the 19th century. Thereafter, Omani
rulers relied heavily on the British for assistance
in consolidating and keeping their control of the
country. In more recent times, it has developed
close relations with the United States.

Most of Oman's 3.3 million (2008 cst.) inhab-
itants arc Arabs, but there are significant numbers
of peoples from outside the country, especially
Baluchis from Iran, South Asians, and Africans.
More than 16 percent of Oman's inhabitants are
nonnationals, many of whom are engaged by the
country’s oil industry. Islam is its dominant reli-
gion, with 75 percent belonging to the Ibadiyya
sect. Other Muslims belong to the Sunni and Shii
branches of Islam. Christians and Hindus also live
in Oman, and the sultan has granted them lands
for their churches and temples.

QATAR

The second-smallest state in the Middle East,
Qatar is located on a small peninsula bordered by
Saudi Arabia and the nearby island nation of Bah-
rain. Doha is the nation's capital, and it is ruled
by a member of the Al Thani, a Sunni Arab clan
that migrated into the peninsula from central Ara-
bia and came to power with British assistance in
1868. Although it became a province of the Otto-
man Empire in the latter part of the 19th century,
it became a British protectorate after World War 1
and attained independence in 1971. The Al Thani

developed friendly relations with Abd al-Aziz ibn
Saud, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Ara-
bia, and, as a result, the leading form of Sunnism
followed in Qatar is that of the Wahhabis, albeit
in a more liberalized form. Followers of Twelve-
Imam Shiism are a small minority. The country's
population of 824,789 (2008 est.) is 95 percent
Muslim, but it is made up of diverse ethnic groups
(Arab 40 percent. South Asian 36 percent, Iranian
10 percent, and other 14 percent). This diversity
is a reflection of the changes the country has
undergone from once having an economy based
on pastoralism, pearling, and fishing to one based
on oil, which began to be exported in significant
quantities in the 1950s. Qatar has become a close
ally of the United States, and, under the present
emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (r. 1999 to
the present), local elections have been held, and
women have been given the right to vote and
run for office. The headquarters of the Al Jazeera
broadcasting network, one of the freest in the
Middle East, is also located there.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The UAE, formerly known as the Trucial States,
is a federation of seven small states (Abu Dhabi,
Ajman, Dubai, Fujaira, Ras al-Khaima, Sharja,
and Umm al-Qaiwain) located near the Strait of
Hormuz on the southeastern shore of the gulf. It
is bordered by Qatar to the west, Saudi Arabia to
the south, and Oman to the east. The leaders of
the UAE come from its most powerful or wealthy
Arabian tribes, particularly the Al Nahayyan of
Abu Dhabi, the Al Maktoum of Dubai, and the
Qasimis of Ras al-Khaima and Sharja. Prior to
independence in 1971, the individual emirates
had established exclusive treaty relations with
Great Britain. Overall authority is now exercised
by the Supreme Council of emirs from each of the
seven states, with a president from the Al Nahayan
and vice president from the Al Maktoum. The
country is home to an estimated 4.6 million
(2005) people, of whom at least 47 percent are
nonnationals, mainly from South Asia and Iran.

Gulf Wars 273

By some estimates, nonnationals may even out-
number UAE citizens. The majority of the coun-
try’s populace follows Sunni Islam (80 percent)
and the Maliki tradition of law. The Shia are a
minority (16 percent). The rest includes Chris-
tians, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahais, and Sikhs, who
have freedom of worship. Christians, Hindus, and
Sikhs have their own churches and temples, while
others conduct their religious practices at home.
Oil has brought the country great prosperity since
its discovery there in 1958, and its per capita
income is now comparable to that of countries
in western Europe. The UAE has also become a
flourishing center of international commerce and
a modern architectural showcase; buildings there
reflect Islamic and Western motifs.

See also Gulf Wars; Organization of Petro-
leum Exporting Countries.

Further reading: Helen Chapin Metz, The Persian Gulj
States: A Country Study (Washington, D.C.: Federal
Division, Library of Congress, 1994); Rosemarie Said
Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait ,
Bahrain , Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman
(London: Unwin Hyman, 1989).

Gulf Wars

Between 1980 and the present (2008), the Persian
Gulf region was subject to three major conflicts
that pitted country against country, Muslim against
Muslim, and Muslims against the United States,
Great Britain, and their allies. Although religion was
not the cause for these conflicts, it nonetheless was
an important factor. The conflicts, in turn, affected
the ways in which religion was used by the various
parties involved to serve their short- and long-term
strategies and policy objectives. In addition, compe-
tition for control of the world's largest OIL fields was
a key element in each of the conflicts.

THE IRAN-1 RAQ WAR OF 1980-1988

This, the first of the modern Gulf wars, began on
September 22, 1980, when Iraqi forces invaded

Iran by crossing the Shatt al-Arab waterway into
southwestern Iran. A major cause of the conflict
was a long-standing dispute between the two
nations over control of this vital waterway, which
is used for transporting oil to global markets
via the Persian Gulf. Iraq had been obliged by a
United Nations resolution in 1975 to share the
waterway jointly with Iran, a development that
Saddam Husayn (d. 2006), Iraq's president, saw
as an insult to his country's sovereignty. Another
area of contention was Iraq's historic claim to the
Iranian province of Khuzistan (also known as
Arabistan), where there was a large population
of Arabs whom Iraq felt needed its protection. In
1980, Husayn perceived that the overthrow of the
Pahlavi monarchy in 1979 by an Islamic revolu-
tion led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d.
1989), the charismatic Shii leader, had left Iran's
defenses weak and in disarray. Husayn concluded
that this was a situation he could exploit to make
Iraq the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. At
the same time, Husayn was angered by efforts
undertaken by Iranian agents to stir up resistance
against his government among Iraqi Shia, the
country's majority population, who live in the
southern part of the country, where many of Iraq's
oil fields are located.

Religion was used in the war to win popular
support domestically and appeal to the wider
Muslim community. After initial losses on the
battlefield, Iranian forces rallied, with the back-
ing of thousands of youthful volunteers called
the Basij, who were encouraged to become holy
martyrs by dying for their country in imitation of
Imam Husayn, the heroic grandson of Muham-
mad who perished in the battle of Karbala in
680 fighting the forces of tyranny and injustice.
By 1982, Iran had regained much of the terri-
tory initially lost to the Iraqi offensive. Saddam
Husayn, on the other hand, attempted to mobilize
Iraqi patriotism by recalling the Battle of Qadisi-
yya (ca. 636), in which Arab Muslim armies were
thought to have decisively defeated the Sassanian
Persian army, opening all of Iran to conquest. He

^ 274 Gulf Wars

also invoked, with little success, the symbolism
of the Shii Imams Ali IBN Abi Talib (d. 661) and
Husayn in order to maintain the loyalty of Iraq's
Shii majority. Iran and Iraq soon became locked in
a long war of attrition, during which Iraq bombed
Iranian towns and CITIES and used chemical weap-
ons to lethal effect in battle.

Iraq was supported by other Arab countries
and received logistical support from Europe and
the United States through secret third-party trans-
fers. The United States in particular followed a
policy of containment (strategic isolation) first of
Iran, then later of Iraq, in order to secure greater
influence in the region and control the spread of
revolutionary Shiism. The war came to an end in
1988 with assistance from the United Nations, but
without a formal peace treaty. Fervor for war was
also reduced following Khomeinis death in 1989,
allowing Iran to take concrete steps toward mak-
ing peace with its neighbor. It was not until after
Iraq had invaded Kuwait in 1990, when it needed
to be on good terms with Iran, that Iraq withdrew
from all occupied Iranian territory, conducted
prisoner exchanges, and agreed to reopen the
Shatt al-Arab to commercial traffic.

The war exacted a terrible price on both coun-
tries: A total of about 1 million lives were lost at
the cost of billions of dollars to the infrastructure
and economy of each country. Nevertheless, the
war allowed Khomeini to eliminate domestic
opponents of his Islamic revolution, and it gave
the government an independent militia, the Basij,
which still plays a leading role in helping the gov-
ernment maintain its power.

THE GULF WAR OF 1990-1991
(ALSO CALLED THE FIRST GULF WAR)

This short war was precipitated when Iraq invaded
Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Iraq had long claimed
sovereignty over Kuwait, which was made a Brit-
ish protectorate in 1899. In the late 1980s, at the
end of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Husayn came to
resent the close relationship Kuwait had formed
with the United States, which was impeding his

ambitions to make his country the chief power in
the Gulf region. At the same time, Iraq held a large
national debt because of its war with Iran, and it
resented the fact that the other major Arab oil-
producing countries were not willing to keep oil
prices high so that it could pay off this debt. More-
over, Husayn complained that Kuwait had been
illegally tapping into the Rumayla oil field that
lies on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. When regional
and international mediation efforts failed to sat-
isfy Iraqi demands, Iraq's forces took the country
by force. In the ensuing months, an international
coalition of 34 countries, led by the United
States, formed first to protect incursion into Saudi
Arabia, then to compel Iraq's withdrawal from
Kuwait. United Nations resolutions authorized
these actions, in addition to several resolutions
that imposed economic sanctions and condemned
Iraq for human rights violations.

The world was deeply concerned that the
looming conflict would affect oil supplies, and
many observers worried that Iraq might resort to
the use of chemical or biological weapons against
the coalition. While serious diplomatic efforts
were being made to resolve the crisis, the coalition
assembled its forces in the Gulf region in what was
called Operation Desert Shield, the first phase of
the war. This was the defensive phase, but the sec-
ond phase involved attacking Iraq in order to force
it to withdraw from Kuwait. The United Nations
gave Iraq until January 15, 1991, to withdraw
peacefully, but it resisted, hoping to rally the sup-
port of the Muslim world and find a diplomatic
alternative. On January 17, 1991, the United
States launched the offensive phase of the war,
known as Operation Desert Storm, with a crip-
pling aerial bombing campaign. Iraq responded
by launching missiles with conventional warheads
at targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia. The missiles
inflicted minor damage, except for one that hit a
U.S. military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia,
killing U.S. military personnel there. On February
22-23, Iraq began to set fire to Kuwait's oil fields,
causing serious environmental damage.

Gulf Wars 275

With the air campaign well under way, a
ground attack, known as Desert Saber, was
launched from Saudi Arabia into Kuwait and
southern Iraq on February 24. Iraqi troops were
quickly overcome and driven out of Kuwait in less
than six days, and on March 3, 1991, Iraq agreed
to a cease-fire and to abide by previous UN resolu-
tions. President George H. W. Bush (r. 1988-93)
and his advisers agreed not to try to advance to
Baghdad and overthrow Saddam Husayn because
of the tremendous costs in life and resources
this would involve. Instead, on April 3, the UN
Security Council passed Resolution 687, which
set terms for a permanent cease-fire and required
Iraq to allow on-site inspections for weapons of
mass destruction, renounce terrorism, and pay
reparations from its oil revenues. The coalition
withdrew its forces from southern Iraq, but later,
in 1992-93, the United States and Great Britain
created zones in the airspace over the northern
and southern thirds of the country where Iraqi
military aircraft were not allowed to fly (known as
no-fly zones). These were to protect the Kurds, an
ethnic group in northern Iraq, and the Shia from
Husayn's forces, but they also gave the United
States and Britain the ability to strike at his forces
whenever necessary.

The religious dimensions of this war were
complex. Many Muslim authorities and Islamic
activist groups quickly reacted to the invasion of
Kuwait by condemning Husayn and Iraq. Egypt,
Syria, and Saudi Arabia joined the U.S.-led coali-
tion. Although some Islamic leaders favored using
non-Muslim troops to protect Saudi Arabia and
expel Iraq from Kuwait, most leading voices advo-
cated letting Muslim countries resolve the conflict
among themselves. Also, some Islamist groups
objected that the stationing of non-Muslim troops
in Saudi Arabia would profane the holy cities of
Mecca and Medina, and many were suspicious
of American and Israeli hegemonic designs on
the region. Saddam Husayn himself appealed to
the support of Muslims on such grounds, even
though many in the region regarded him as a

religious hypocrite and disbeliever. In an elfort to
enhance his Islamist credentials, Husayn added
the religious phrase Allah akhar (God is greatest)
to the Iraqi flag.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its
counterpart in Pakistan, the Jamaat-i Islami, joined
those who first condemned Saddam Husayn's
actions, but as the war progressed, they voiced
their opposition to the coalition force, fearing that
it secretly wanted to recolonize Muslim lands.
Many North African Muslim leaders held similar
views. Public opinion in Jordan was strongly
pro-Iraqi, and the Muslim Brotherhood effectively
mobilized to win seats in parliament and in King
Husayn ibn Talal's (r. 1950-99) cabinet. Iran's Shii
revolutionary government opposed both Saddam
Husayn's invasion of Kuwait and the dispatching
of American troops to the region, even going so
far as to call for a jihad against the United States.
They proceeded to finalize a cease-fire with Iraq
and offered sanctuary to Iraq's air force so that it
would not be destroyed.

The response of Iraqi Shia to the war was espe-
cially noteworthy. Shii opposition groups such as
the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in
Iraq (SCIR1) and the Daawa Party, which had been
forced into exile by Husayn's government, hoped
that the regime would fall, but they did not want
to see their country destroyed by a full-scale war.
They also began to favor the creation of a more
democratic government. Shii leaders joined lead-
ers of secular Iraqi opposition groups in calling for
a popular uprising against Husayn during the war.
When it was evident that Iraq would be defeated,
these calls intensified. Further incitement for a
rebellion was provided by President Bush on Feb-
ruary 15, 1991, when he called on "the Iraqi mili-
tary and the Iraqi people to take matters into their
own hands'' (Sifry and Cerf, 96). Their rebellion
actually started during the first week in March in
southern Iraq, quickly spreading to Kurdish areas
in the north. It included disaffected members
of the regular armed forces as well as civilians.
However, when it became evident that the United

276 Gulf Wars

States was not going to help the rebels, Husayn’s
elite Revolutionary Guard acted with deadly force
to end the rebellion. In less than two weeks, it
was completely smashed. Estimates indicate that
as many as 100,000 Kurds and 130,000 Shiis had
been killed in the uprising alone. Great damage
was done to Shii cities, towns, and shrines in the
south as well as to Kurdish population centers in
the north.

THE GULF WAR OF 2003-
(ALSO CALLED THE SECOND GULF WAR
AND OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM)

This war, which is ongoing at this writing (August
2008), consists of two phases. Although targets
in southern Iraq were subject to periodic aerial
bombings by American warplanes in 2002, the
first phase of the war proper began on March 20,
2003. It opened with massive “shock-and-awe”
aerial attacks and a full-scale ground invasion
northward from Kuwait by a coalition force com-
posed mainly of U.S. and British troops. Kurdish
militias joined with U.S. Special Forces to secure
territory in northern Iraq. The invasion force
achieved a quick victory on the battlefield and
took control of Baghdad on April 9, overthrow-
ing the Baath Party— controlled government of
Saddam Husayn. The second phase of the conflict
involved a U.S. -led occupation of the country
and a largely low-intensity war against loosely
organized Iraqi resistance fighters and a small but
deadly force of foreign radical Muslims who infil-
trated the country during the occupation to fight
the Americans. During this phase, governance of
the country shifted from a Provisional Coalition
Authority headed by an American administrator
(Paul Bremer) to an interim Iraqi government and
then to an elected government based on a new
democratic constitution. The new government
had majority Shii representation for the first time
in Iraq's modern history. However, significant
numbers of Iraqis, most of them disenfranchised
Sunni Arabs, did not accept the legitimacy of this
government. There have been numerous attacks

on civilians by a variety of militias and Muslim
jihadists, leading some observers to conclude that
this second phase of the war has actually become
a civil war between the Sunni Arab minority and
the Shii majority. Altogether, the war and occu-
pation have exacted a high toll from the Iraqi
people — more than 100,000 lives lost, many more
injured, up to 4 million Iraqi REFUGEES, and bil-
lions of dollars of damage done to the infrastruc-
ture and the economy.

This war, unlike the previous Gulf wars, was
not caused by an overt act of Iraqi aggression.
Rather, it was caused by a combination of several
factors, including a perceived threat that Iraq might
act aggressively (it had violated 17 UN Security
Council resolutions). A small group of U.S. policy
makers and commentators, now known as the
Neocons (an abbreviation of “Neoconservatives"),
were unhappy with the outcome of the 1990-91
Gulf War because they had wanted to sec Saddam
Husayns government completely removed from
power in order to create a Middle East that was
more favorable to American strategic interests.
They met periodically with a group of Iraqi exiles,
known collectively as the Iraqi National Congress
(INC), and lobbied in Washington for bringing
about “regime change” in Iraq during the latter
part of the 1990s. As part of their strategy, they
promoted continuation of the UN-authorized
embargo, even though many countries favored
normalizing relations with Iraq and a UN human
rights agency estimated that as many as 500,000
Iraqi children had died as a result of the embargo
during the first 10 years that it was in effect.

The election of George W. Bush as president
in 2000 brought many of the Neocons into power,
so immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sep-
tember 11, 2001, concrete steps were taken for
going to war against Iraq as part of a global “war
against terrorism.” Even though there was no Iraqi
involvement in the 9/11 attacks, Bush administra-
tion officials argued that with its weapons of mass
destruction, it posed an imminent threat to the
United States and its allies, despite the absence

Gulf Wars 2 77

of conclusive evidence thal Iraq, in fact, still had
such weapons. Weapons inspections and intel-
ligence assessments conducted before and after
the war have shown that most, if not all, of Iraq's
arsenal of lethal weapons had been destroyed or
significantly degraded since the mid-1990s as a
result of the UN inspections.

Alternatively, the Bush administration argued
that the replacement of Husayns government by
a democratic government would help spread the
cause of freedom in the region, provide its people
with greater security, and help resolve the Isracli-
Palestinian conflict. Consequently, the invasion was
called Operation Iraqi Freedom. On a more practi-
cal level, having a friendly government in Baghdad
that allowed American troops to be stationed in the
country would assure U.S. control of the worlds
oil supply at a time of growing demand by newly
industrializing nations, especially China and India.
Iraq has the fourth-largest proven oil reserves in the
world and a strategically dominant location vis-a-
vis other oil-producing nations in the Middle East.

The third Gulf War has had a significant
impact on the dynamics of Islamic politics and
radicalism in the early 21st century. Above all,
it has brought Shii Muslims into power where
there had previously been a secular Arab regime
consisting mostly of Sunnis. Instead of the Baath
Party, the dominant parties in the government now
are the Daawa Party and the Supreme Council of
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (renamed Supreme
Islamic Iraqi Council in May 2007), both of which
are Islamic organizations that had been opposed
to Saddam Husayns regime and had received
protection, support, and training from the revo-
lutionary Shii government in Iran. In addition,
two Shii religious figures have risen to national
prominence in the country — the venerable Ayatol-
lah Ali Sistani (b. 1930), an expert in the sharia,
and Muqtada al-Sadr (b. 1973), who comes from
a prominent family of Shii religious authorities
and controls a Shii militia. Despite U.S. military

presence in the country, the war has also given
Iran the opportunity to influence Iraqi affairs in a
way that it has not been able to do since the days
of the Safavid dynasty in the 17th century, when
it was part of the Safavid Empire. Leaders of Saudi
Arabia and Jordan, meanwhile, have expressed
concern thal the war has allowed the Shia to exer-
cise more influence throughout the Middle East,
from Lebanon to the Persian Gulf, creating what
some observers have called a “Shii Crescent.”

At the same time, radical Sunni Muslim orga-
nizations, led by al-Qaida, have declared a jihad
on U.S. and British troops in Iraq, using the
foreign occupation of a Muslim country in their
propaganda to win new recruits. In addition to
attacking U.S. and British troops, they have also
been held responsible for killing Shii civilians in
suicide bombings and assassinations. Inspired by
Wahhabism, they regard Shiism as a form of unbe-
lief and oppose the cooperation of Shii officials in
the Iraqi government with U.S. authorities. Their
actions have contributed significantly to sectarian
violence between Iraqi Shiis and Sunnis. Radical
Islamic groups and overt Shii-Sunni sectarian vio-
lence were not present in Iraq when it was under
Baath control prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Experts have expressed concern that these forces
may further destabilize the entire region and put
the world's oil supply in jeopardy.

See also Daawa Party of Iraq; Gulf States;
1SLAMISM.

Further reading: George Packer. Assassins Gate: Amer-
ica in Iraq (New York: Farrar. Strauss & Giroux,
2005); James Piscatori, ed., Islamic Fundamentalisms
and the Gulf Crisis (Chicago: The Fundamentalism Proj-
ect. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1991);
Anthony Shadid. Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the
Shadow of America's War (New York: Henry Holt, 2005);
Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, eds., The Iraq War
Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (New York: Simon
& Schuster, 2003).

hadd See CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

chapter on beverages in the collection of Muslim
ibn al-Hajjaj states:

hadith (Arabic: speech, report, narrative)

A hadith is a short report, story, or tradition about
what Muhammad (d. 632), the historical founder
of the Islamic religion, said or did and about what
he did not say or do. The word hadith is also used
with reference to the body of such reports, known
as the hadith. There were literally thousands of
hadith circulating in the Muslim community in
oral and written form in Islam's first century. These
were eventually collected into books during the
ninth and 10th centuries. These reports arc part of
a very large corpus of such accounts that govern
Islamic law, religious practice, belief, and everyday
life. Most Muslims believe that the hadith should
complement the Quran. As such, it embodies one
kind of revealed truth that defines the SUNNA, or
the authentic code of action approved by Muham-
mad as the foremost prophet of Islam. Throughout
Islamic history, each of the major Islamic tradi-
tions — Sunnism, Shiism, and Sufism — has looked to
the hadith for guidance and inspiration.

In its classic form, a hadith is composed of two
parts, a chain of transmitters (the isnad) and the
main text ( matn ) of the report. A hadith from the

Abd Allah ibn Muadh al-Anbari told us that
he was told by Shuba on the authority of
Abu Ishaq on the authority of al-Bara who
said that Abu Bakr the Truthful said, “When
we went from Mecca to Medina with the
Prophet, we passed by a shepherd. God's
Messenger had become thirsty, so I milked
|an animal] and brought some milk to him.
He drank it until his thirst was quenched."

The list of transmitters here goes back in time
from Muslims in the ninth century to Muham-
mad in the seventh century. Abu Bakr, a close
companion of Muhammad and the first caliph (r.
632-634), was the witness. The sunna, or reli-
gious norm, is contained in the main text, which
upholds the permissibility of drinking milk fresh
from an animal, no doubt a widespread practice
in Arabia at the time. Hadith can also express
prohibitions. In the same chapter on beverages,
Muslim includes a hadith transmitted by Aisha,
Muhammad's wife, which prohibits intoxicating
drinks. According to this hadith, Muhammad
said, “Every beverage that intoxicates is forbidden

278

hadith 279

[haram]." It thus complements and expands upon
the Quran’s ban against drinking wine. In addition
to matters of belief and practice, the hadith also
contain historical information and Quran com-
mentary (tafsir).

A very special kind of hadith is the hadith
qudsi (holy hadith). This is one that contains a
saying attributed to God by Muhammad but not
found in the Quran. Although it is a divine say-
ing, it is not regarded with the same authority as a
verse from the Quran, and modern scholars think
that many holy hadith originated late in the eighth
century, long after Muhammad's time. This kind of
hadith usually narrates a teaching about God, the
virtues of piety, and the end of the world. In one of
the most popular holy hadith discussed by Sufis,
God says, “I was a hidden treasure that wished
to be known, so I created the universe so that I
might be known." In another, found in several
Sunni collections, God says, “Spend [ in charity),
O son of Adam, and I shall spend on you." This
one promises blessings for the generous.

The earliest of the major Sunni collections
was the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal (d. 855). It was
organized according the names of the Companions
of the Prophet, who were originally credited
in the isnad with having transmitted the hadith.
lie started with reports attributed to the first
four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and
Ali) and concluded with hadith transmitted by
women, most notably Aisha and other wives of
the Prophet. The renowned traditionist of Bagh-
dad reportedly gathered a total of about 700,000
hadith, narrated by more than 900 companions,
of which he selected 30,000 for his Musnad. Ibn
Ilanbal's staunch defense of the hadith at a time
when others wanted to base religion and law r on
human reason and personal opinion made him
the leader of the ahl al-hadith (Hadith partisans)
movement in Abbasid Iraq during the ninth cen-
tury, which contributed significantly to the forma-
tion of the Islamic legal tradition.

The six most authoritative and canonical
hadith collections recognized by Sunnis are those

of al-Bukhari (d. 870), Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (d.
874), Abu Daud (d. 888), al-Tirmidhi (d. 892),
Ibn Maja (d. 892), and al-Nasai (d. 915). Of
these, the first two are considered to be the most
correct and are thus called “the two correct ones"
(al-sahihan). All six are arranged by subject, like
the Jewish Talmud (the oral Torah of Moses).
Muslim's collection, for example, is organized
into “books" on the following topics: matters of
faith, ritual purity, prayer, almsgiving, fasting,
hajj, commercial transactions and oaths, crimi-
nal punishments, jihad, government, sacrifice,
drinks, dress, greeting and visitation, and miscel-
lany, including accounts about the afterlife and
Quran commentary. Muslim is reported to have
gathered some 300,000 hadith in his lifetime, of
which only an estimated 3,000 were included in
his collection.

The Shia developed their own authoritative
hadith collections by the 10th century. These
collections were based on statements attributed
to the imams, starting with Ali ibn Abi Talib (d.
661), and they generally upheld Shi i doctrines
about them. They did not include hadith trans-
mitted by the first three caliphs and many of the
companions because the Shia authorities con-
sidered these individuals corrupt usurpers who
prevented members of Muhammad's household
from assuming leadership of the Islamic l/mma.
Among the leading Shii collections are those of al-
Kulayni (d. 939), Ibn Babuya al-Qummi (d. 991),
and Muhammad al-Tusi (d. 1067). Perhaps the
most comprehensive later Shii hadith collection
is Muhammad Baqir al-Majlisi's Bihar al-anwar
(Oceans of Lights), completed around 1674. The
modern printed edition of this book consists of
more than 110 volumes.

Sufis also valued the hadith, especially those
that endorsed their spiritual disciplines and teach-
ings. They were not averse to using narratives
of questionable authenticity, but they also knew
how to win the approval of literal-minded ulama
by citing hadith from the canonical collections.
Thus, in his book of Sufi biographies, called The

280 Hagar

Generations of the Sufis ( Al-Tcibaqcit al-sufiyya ),
al-Sulami (d. 1091) links the sayings of prominent
mystics to the hadith of Muhammad.

Muslim scholars recognized very early on,
certainly by the middle of the eighth century, that
some of the hadith had been forged or transmit-
ted carelessly. Hadith transmitters and collectors
even attacked each other for doing so. Moreover,
because so much of law and doctrine was founded
on hadith, they needed to be assessed according to
their degree of authenticity or lack thereof. Such
concerns led to the development of a science of
hadith criticism (ilm cil-hadith ). The focus of this
science was on the names of transmitters listed in
the isnad. Hadiths were basically judged accord-
ing to how continuous the line of transmitters
was. Hadith with the most continuous lines were
called sahih (correct, sound), as long as the con-
tent did not contradict the Quran. If an isnad was
discontinuous or had unreliable transmitters, then
the hadith was called hasan (good). If a hadith
had transmitters known to be unreliable or if the
content was not in conformity with the Quran
and had unacceptable content, then it was called
daif (weak). The need to know who the transmit-
ters were, where they lived, when they converted
to Islam, and so forth helped spark the writing
of biographical encyclopedias, which became a
major genre of Islamic and Arabic literature.

Since the late 19th century. Western scholars
of Islamic studies, especially those known as Ori-
entalists, have treated the hadith with even more
skepticism than medieval Muslim scholars. They
have argued that the hadith were either verbal-
ized survivals of pre-Islamic custom, legitimated
during the Islamic period by attributing them to
Muhammad and his companions, or they were
fabricated a century or more after Muhammad's
death to legitimate practices and beliefs that
emerged after the seventh century. Scholarly con-
sensus in recent decades has moved closer to the
position accepted by most Muslims — that many, if
not most, of the hadith are authentic, but they still
demand critical assessment. Beyond the question

of authenticity, however, the most critical ques-
tion facing Muslims today is whether and how
the hadith can still inform Muslim life in the age
of globalization and profound social and cultural
change.

See also Akhbari School; authority; biogra-
phy; fiqh ; Orientalism; sharia.

Further reading: Hadith translations: Husayn al-
Baghawi, expanded by Wali al-Din al-Khatib al-Tribizi,
Mishkat al-Masabih (The Niche for Lamps). Translated
by James Robson, 4 vols. (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad
Ashraf, 1964-1966); Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Mus-
lim: Being Sayings and Doings of the Prophet Muhammad
as Narrated by His Companions and Compiled under the
Title al-Jami al-Sahih by Imam Muslim. Translated by
Abdul Hamid Siddiqi (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf,
1971-1973); John Aldcn Williams, The Word of Islam
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 36-65.
Secondary works: Frederick Mathcwson Denny, An
Introduction to Islam (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pear-
son/Prentice Hall, 2006); William A. Graham, Divine
Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam (The Hague and
Paris: Mouton, 1977); Etan Kohlberg, “Shii Hadith.” In
The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Vol. I, Arabic
Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, edited by A.
F. L. Beeston ct al., 299-307 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983); Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi,
Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Development and Special
Features (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993).

Hagar (Arabic: Hajar) biblical maidservant
of Abraham and mother of his son Ishmael, whom
Muslims include in the ancestry of the Arab peoples
and the prophet Muhammad

Islamic understandings of Hagar are based on
two stories found in the book of Genesis, the
first book of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament.
According to the first of these stories, Hagar was
the Egyptian servant girl whom Sarah, the wife
of Abraham, gave to her husband to bear his
child because she herself was barren. After Hagar
became pregnant, Sarah exiled her to the desert,

hajjj 281

where she encountered an ANGEL who told her to
return to Abraham’s household to give birth to
their son Ishmael (Gen. 16:1-16). The second
story takes place after Sarah gave birth to her
own child, Isaac, and expelled Hagar and Ishmael
into the desert once again because Sarah did not
want Ishmael to share Abraham's inheritance
with her son. When Hagar and Ishmael ran out
of food and water, the angel of God provided
them a well of water and promised to make the
descendants of Ishmael “a great nation" (Gen. 21:
8-21). Modern scholars think that these stories
were an attempt by Hebrew authors living in the
10th century b.c.e. to explain the origins of the
Bedouin nomads of Syria-Palestinc. These stories
were later commented and expanded upon by
Jewish rabbis.

Islamic narratives about Hagar were included
in Quran commentaries (but not in the Quran
itself), “tales of the prophets" literature (Qisas al-
anbiya ), and early histories of Mecca. These sto-
ries were transposed to the Arab-Islamicate milieu
from rabbinic Judaism between the eighth and
11th centuries C.E. Reflecting this new context,
Hagar, for example, was called boih an Egyptian
and a Copt (an Egyptian Christian). The wilder-
ness where Hagar and Ishmael were exiled was
identified with the ancient site of Mecca in Arabia
and the angel of God with Gabriel, the angelic
messenger to Muslim prophets. According to
Islamic accounts, Hagar, in her search for water,
ran between Safa and Marwa, two hills adjacent
to the future site of the Kaaba in Mecca, before
Gabriel provided her and her son with water
from the spring of Zamzam. Hagar s search was
memorialized in the seven runnings performed by
pilgrims to Mecca between Safa and Marwa dur-
ing the Greater and Lesser Pilgrimages (the hajj
and the umra). In a similar manner, the location
of the sacrifice of Abraham was transferred to the
Mecca territory, and in one Islamic version of the
story, Satan attempted to recruit Hagar to dissuade
Abraham from sacrificing his son. She steadfastly
refused. Both Hagar and Ishmael reportedly died

in Mecca and were buried next to the Kaaba in a
place called the Hijr, which remains part of the
Sacred Mosque precinct today.

Both Hagar and Ishmael were included in the
genealogies of the Arab peoples and the prophet
Muhammad, thus making them part of the Abra-
hamic heritage. Muhammad was once reported to
have said to one of his companions, “When you
conquer Egypt, be kind to its people, for they have
the covenant of protection and are your kinfolk.”
This was because Hagar, the mother of Ishmael,
was an Egyptian.

See also Arabic language and literature; chil-
dren; Copts and the Coptic Church.

Further reading: Rcuvcn Firestone, Journeys in Holy
Lands: The Evolution of the Abrahatn-Ishmael Legends
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990);
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Amis al-majalis fi
qisas al-anbiya, or "Lives of the Prophets . ” Translated by
William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002).

hajj

The fifth pillar of Islam is the annual pilgrimage
to Mecca, called the hajj, which all Muslims arc
required to perform at least once in their lifetimes
if they are able to. This religious journey, which
is forbidden to non-Muslims, involves a series of
ritual activities that pilgrims called hajjis must
perform over a period of six days during the 12th
month of the Muslim calendar, Dhu al-Hijja
("pilgrimage month"). The rituals arc performed
in a sacred landscape that includes the Sacred
Mosque in Mecca, the town of Mina (about three
miles east of the Grand Mosque), and the plain of
Arafat (about seven miles east of Mina). In addi-
tion, many pilgrims visit Muhammad's mosque in
Medina on their way to or from Mecca.

The Quran and sunna provide authorization
for the hajj rituals, which arc believed to have
been initiated by sacred figures in Islamic history:
Adam, Abraham, Hagar (Abrahams wife), and
especially Muhammad. The essential hajj rituals

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282 hajj

SAUDI ARABIA

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Mecca

(Makkah)

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OF ARAFAT

Mt. Arafat

1 Start of the main pilgrimage

2 Prayers at the Plain of Arafat

3 Pilgrims sleep at Muzdalifa

4 Jamaraat — stoning the pillars

5 Return to Mecca

© Infobase Publishing

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are performed in and around the city of Mecca.
They include 1) statement of intention and purifi-
cation of the body, 2) inaugural circumambulation
of the Kaaba seven times, 3) running between the
hills of Safa and Marwa seven times, 4) encamp-
ment at Mina, 3) standing at the plain of Arafat
at midday on 9 Dhu al-Hijja, 6) spending the
evening at Muzdalifa (between Arafat and Mina),
7) stoning the three "satanic" pillars at Mina, 8)
ANIMAL sacrifice, and 9) farewell circumambula-
tion of the Kaaba. Standing at Arafat is the most
important of these rites, and if it is missed, the
hajj is disqualified. The animal sacrifice is cele-
brated worldwide by Muslims as a holiday, known
as Id al-Adha. F/qh literature spells out the details

of each of these rituals, and most pilgrims must
rely on expert guides and handbooks in order to
complete the requirement successfully. Muslims
believe that the hajj is an expression of repentance
and obedience to God as well as a demonstration
of their unity. Many consider the assembly of pil-
grims in their simple white garments at Arafat to
be a rehearsal for the resurrection of the dead and
Judgment Day.

The hajj has its origins in ancient Middle
Eastern religious practices that were performed
in western Arabia well before the appearance of
Islam. Muhammad's Farewell Hajj, which occurred
shortly before his death in 632, is the model that
all other Muslims follow when they perform the

hal 283

pilgrimage. Later Muslim rulers were responsible
for supporting the pilgrimage and maintaining the
holy sites in Mecca. They helped supply provi-
sions and organize pilgrim caravans that traveled
overland via the cities of Cairo, Damascus, Bagh-
dad, Basra, and Sanaa or by boat to the Red Sea
port of Jidda. Before modern times, the journey to
Mecca could be quite hazardous; pilgrims might
be attacked by thieves or die of disease. Only a few
thousand were usually able to go, but today, with
the availability of motorized transportation such
as the automobile and the airplane, as many as
2.5 million Muslims perform the hajj each year. To
accommodate such large numbers of pilgrims, the
government of Saudi Arabia has spent more than
$100 billion dollars since the 1950s to modern-
ize and expand the pilgrimage facilities. To make
the pilgrimage safer and more manageable, it has
cooperated with the governments of other Muslim
countries to set quotas for the number of pilgrims
each of them is allowed to send. Other Muslim
governments, such as those of Egypt, Pakistan,
Turkey, Indonesia, and Malaysia, play important
roles in the regulation of the pilgrimage, which
helps demonstrate their support for Islam to their
citizens.

See also Five Pillars; umra; ziyara.

Further reading: Robert R. Bianchi, Guests of God:
Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004); David Long, The Hajj
Today: A Survey of the Contemporary Pilgrimage to
Makkah (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1979); F E. Peters, The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to
Mecca and the Holy Places (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994); Michael Wolfe, The Hadj: An
Americans Pilgrimage to Mecca (New York: Grove Press,
1993).

hal (Arabic: condition, state of being)

Religious experience is seen by many as a defin-
ing feature of religion itself. Scholars of religion
hold different points of view as to whether it

constitutes an extraordinary type of experience
or whether it is conditioned by language, culture,
and perception — in other words, by ordinary
human existence in the world. In the comparative
study of religions, a dual classification of religious
experience has been proposed — theistic and non-
theistic. The first involves personal encounters
with a god that are discontinuous with everyday
lived experience, such as those attributed to
Moses, Paul, Muhammad, and Teresa of Avila. The
second is based on impersonal encounters with a
more abstract force or principle of order, such as
those found in esoteric Hinduism and Buddhism.
Some scholars make a differentiation between
profoundly powerful external experiences and
contemplative inward experiences.

Hal is a term the Sufis have used in their
discourses to describe a kind of theistic, inward
religious experience. They adapted it from the
technical vocabulary of early Muslim scholars
of Arabic language, medicine, and philosophy.
Al-Muhasibi (d. 857) of Basra, a contemplative
mystic, is thought to have been the first to have
employed it in relation to mystical experience.
The hal was understood as an inner state or spiri-
tual “encounter" that descends from God into the
heart of the mystic. Most Sufi thinkers considered
it to be a spontaneous state of grace, or “flash of
lightning," that was one of many possible states
in the quest for higher consciousness, or intimate
knowledge of God. Unlike the m aqam, or spiritual
“station," the hal could not be attained as a result
of the Sufis own intentions or efforts. Although in
theory it was discontinuous with everyday lived
experience, the language Sufis used to describe
the different kinds of states they experienced
reflected the wider world in which they lived.
Among the states they identified were those
of “repentance," “longing," “love," “intimacy,"
“contraction," “expansion," “delight," and even
“terror." The leading writers who contributed to
the development of the idea of the spiritual state
among Sufis were al-Sarraj of Tus (d. 988), al-
Hujwiri of Lahore (d. ca. 1072), al-Qushayri of

284 halal

Nishapur (d. 1074), al-Ansari of Harat (d. 1089),
and al-Ghazali of Tus (d. 1111).

See also Allah; Sufism.

Further reading: Ali ibn Uthman al-Hujwiri, The KashJ
al-Mahjub: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism. Trans-
lated by R. A. Nicholson (1959. Reprint, New Delhi: Taj
Printers, 1997); Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism:
Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings (New
York: Paulist Press, 1996).

ha/a/ (Arabic: permissible, lawful)

Islam is a religion that assigns significant attention
to practice. This is evident in the priority Muslims
have given to performing the Five Pillars of ritual
worship and observing the sharia. Practice is an
aspect of religious identity and social life, and,
in Islamic belief, it affects a persons fate in the
AFTERLIFE. From the start, Muslims relied on a
convenient set of categories for classifying lawful
and unlawful practices. Halal was one of these
categories, used for classifying “permissible," law-
ful practices in accordance with the Quran, the
sunna, and the doctrines of the different schools
of Islamic law (fiqh). Its counterpart for designat-
ing unlawful, forbidden practices was HARAM. Both
terms contribute to defining the ethical standards
that Muslims are enjoined to follow in the con-
duct of their lives.

The binary categories of halal and haram (and
related terms based on the Arabic consonantal
roots h-l-l and h-r-m) were established by the
Quran, where they were used in connection with
ritual acts of worship, dietary laws, and family
law. They are therefore believed to have been
created by God. Moreover, Muslims believe that
the range of things that God has made lawful is
much more inclusive than what he has forbid-
den. After Muhammad's death in 632, during the
early centuries of the Arab Islamicate empire,
religious scholars and jurists seem to have found
the binary classification of practices too inflexible
to regulate everyday life, so they devised an alter-

native scheme of five categories ( ahkam ), placed
on a scale of acts as follows: obligatory (wajib/
farcl ), recommended ( mandub ), merely permitted
( mubah ), disapproved ( makruh ), and forbidden
(haram). Halal was therefore replaced by three
different degrees of lawfulness, or permissibility.
Jurists ruled that performance of obligatory acts
was rewarded by God, and their omission was
punishable. Recommended acts were rewarded but
not punishable for their omission. Acts that were
merely permitted were neutral, subject neither
to reward or punishment, and acts disapproved
were reprehensible but not subject to punishment.
This schema gave jurists more flexibility when
debating sacred law and issuing judgments and
advisory rulings (fatwas). In recent times, when
Muslims have had to deal with different kinds of
value systems and legal traditions and when some
Islamic movements have sought to reformulate
Islam into an ideology for mobilizing the masses,
many have resorted to assessing practices once
again in terms of the simpler binary categories of
halal and haram.

Muslims have used halal most widely to cate-
gorize foods that conform to Islamic dietary laws.
Meat from domesticated animals (for example,
sheep, cattle, camels, poultry) that have been
correctly slaughtered and drained of all blood is
considered to be halal. Other prepared foods and
beverages, as long as they do not contain alcohol,
blood, carrion, or other impure substances, are
also classified as halal. Groceries and restaurants
that sell food to Muslims in countries where they
arc a minority, such as in Europe and the Ameri-
cas, often advertise that they offer halal foods. As
the term kosher is used on food product labels for
Jews, the designation halal can also be found on
some food products for Muslims. Such labeling
has become the subject of consumer protection
laws in the United States. The usage of halal,
moreover, extends well beyond the dining table
and the grocery store. In the most widely pub-
lished book on the subject, Egyptian religious
scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi (b. 1926) employs it in

Hamas 285

discussions of clothing, hair, home furnishings,
pets, employment, business, bathing, male and
female relations, child rearing, toys, recreational
activities, social relations, and relations with non-
Muslims.

See also authority; fatwa; food and drink.

Further reading: Laleh Bakhtiar, Encyclopedia of Islamic
Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chicago: ABC
International Group, 1996); Yusuf al-Qaradawi, The
Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam (Al-halal wal-haram fi
al-Islam). Translated by Kamal El-Hclbawi. M. Moinud-
din Siddiqui, and Syed Shukry (Indianapolis: American
Trust Publications, 1960).

al-Hallaj, al-Husayn ibn Mansur (857-
922) controversial early Sufi remembered for his
proclamation “I am the Truth ” and for the martyr's
death he suffered at the hands of Muslim authorities
in Baghdad

Born in the Fars region of southern Iran, al-
Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj moved with his
family to Wasit, a town in central Iraq. His father
probably worked in the textile industry ( hallaj is
Arabic for a person in the cotton or wool carder
profession). In his youth, al-Hallaj memorized the
Quran and studied Sufism with Sahl al-Tustari (d.
896), but he was not initiated as a Sufi until he
was 20 years old. Marriage did not sway him from
his spiritual quest, and, traveling between Iran,
Iraq, and Mecca, he reportedly gained a following
of 400 disciples. He was also said to have visited
India, Central Asia, and the tomb of Jesus in Jeru-
salem. After performing the HAJJ to Mecca for the
third time, he returned to his family in Baghdad
and created a model of the Kaaba in his house.
Al-Hallajs affiliations with rebels, Shiis, and non-
Muslims eventually aroused the suspicions of
conservative Sunnis and political authorities.
Some of his former Sufi associates even accused
him of magic and witchcraft. Moreover, while
engaged in his spiritual quest for God, he made
public sermons and statements that angered his

opponents. In one of these, he said that Muslims
could fulfill the hajj duty by performing circum-
ambulations in their hearts and giving charity to
the poor at home. His most famous utterance was,
“1 am the Truth, ' which his enemies interpreted to
be an assertion of his own divinity. In the Islamic
worldview. Truth (haqq) was regarded as an attri-
bute of God. Sufis made such statements (sha-
thiyyat) while in a state of ecstasy, implying that
they were speaking in God's voice, not their own.
Al-Hallaj soon became implicated in the religious
and political intrigues of 10th-century Baghdad
and was imprisoned for nine years. Finally put on
trial by his enemies in 922, he was charged with
BLASPHEMY, beaten, and crucified. His remains
were burned and thrown into the Tigris River,
preventing his family and friends from giving him
a proper Muslim burial or from venerating him as
a saint. Al-Hallaj consequently has a mixed legacy,
remembered by some as a heretic and by others as
a martyred saint. His sayings were written down
and collected by his followers. He is also credited
for having written Kitab al-Tawasin, an assemblage
of meditations on Muhammad, the prophet's Night
Journey and Ascent, and Satan's dialogues with
God and Moses.

See also apostasy; funerary rituals; haqiqa;
Junayd, Abu al-Qasim ibn Muhammad; martyrdom.

Further reading: Louis Massignon, The Passion of al-
Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam, 4 vols. Translated by
Herbert Mason (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press. 1982); Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism:
Sufi, Quran, Miraj , Poetic and Theological Writings (New
York: Paulist Press, 1996), 266-280.

Hamas

Hamas, an Arabic acronym for the “Islamic Resis-
tance Movement,” emerged from the Muslim
Brotherhood during the first Palestinian intifada
(uprising of the West Bank and Gaza territories
against Israeli occupation). With charitable, polit-
ical, and militant wings, Hamas became a contro-

'CSSSD

286 Hanafi Legal School

vcrsial and pervasive force among Palestinians in
the late 20th century.

The Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood had a
history of opposition to the secular Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) in the years pre-
ceding the intifada of 1987. Active in the Occu-
pied Territories as well as Egypt and Jordan, the
Muslim Brotherhood encouraged a rejection of
secularity among Palestinians, in opposition to
the nonreligious nationalism of the PLO. In the
early 1980s, spiritual leaders in the brotherhood,
such as Shaykh Ahmad Yassin (d. 2004), created
a financial and military infrastructure that could
challenge the PLO for leadership of the Palestin-
ians. This framework became the basis of Hamas,
an organization that was initially supported by the
Israeli government, which hoped to undermine
the PLO.

In 1987, however, Hamas unleashed itself
onto the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, becoming one of the most important
forces of leadership in the intifada. Indeed, Hamas
claimed that it had initiated the intifada, although
that is still a point of debate among histori-
ans. Hamas developed a political and theological
understanding of the occupation that appealed to
many Palestinians while at the same time organiz-
ing charitable, educational, medical, and housing
outreach programs to Palestinians living in the
dire conditions of refugee camps and under Israeli
occupation. Unlike the PLO, which viewed the
Palestinian condition in secular nationalist terms,
Hamas expressed itself in Islamic terms. Theolo-
gians such as Yassin argued that the occupation of
Palestine was an affront to all Muslims and that
the presence of the Zionist Israeli state needed
to come to an end for religious as well as politi-
cal reasons. Hamas proposed the destruction of
Israel and the institution of a Muslim government
in Palestine that ruled according to the sharia.
This was a message that inspired many Muslim
Palestinians but also alienated moderate Muslims
as well as Christian and secular Palestinians and
those who preferred the leadership of the PLO.

As the PLO entered into negotiations with
Israel during the era of the peace initiatives of
the 1990s, Hamas continued to gain in popular-
ity among Palestinians who felt less connected to
the PLO as it grew closer to Israel. The Palestin-
ian Authority assured Israel that it would restrict
the activities of Hamas's militant factions, but the
emergence of a new intifada in 2000 demonstrated
that Hamas was still very popular among many
living under Israeli occupation. At the beginning
of the 21st century, Hamas continued to be one
of the most active, militant participants in the
intifada against Israeli occupation and, in the eyes
of many, too important a player to be excluded
from negotiations. Like their counterparts in the
ultra-right wing Israeli camp, Hamas became a
powerful social and political force, largely exist-
ing outside the channels of public diplomacy,
yet striking at the heart of the Palestinian-Isracli
conflict. An indication of the movement's grow-
ing influence among Palestinians is that it won
a majority of seats in the Palestinian legislative
election of January 2006, a development that
complicated relations with the PLO and ended
any chance for reaching a negotiated peace agree-
ment with Israel.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Islamism; poli-
tics and Islam; terrorism.

Nancy L. Stockdalc

Further reading: Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamental -
ism in the West Bank and Gaza (Bloomington: Indi-
ana University Press, 1994); William L. Cleveland,
A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press, 2000); Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in
the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

Hanafi Legal School

The Hanafi Legal School ( tnadhhab ) is one of
the four Sunni traditions of Islamic law, and
it is considered to be the most widespread. It
was named after Abu Hanifa (d. 767), an Iraqi

Hanafi Legal School 287

of Persian heritage, who was credited by later
generations of legal scholars to be its founder.
The school originated in the turbulent southern
Iraqi city of Kufa, one of the earliest centers of
Islamic learning outside the Arabian Peninsula.
Iraqi legal scholars began to formulate a legal
tradition based on the assertion that their under-
standing of the SUNNA (authoritative practice) of
Muhammad was authenticated by the fact that it
had been transmitted to them by the Companions
of the Prophet who had come to Iraq when it
was first occupied by Arab Muslim forces in the
seventh century. After the Quran, Abu Hanifa
and his circle favored using individual informed
opinion (ray) based on precedent and reason
(ijtihad) rather than strict reliance on the hadith,
about which they were more cautious than their
counterparts in Medina. In fact, the Hanafis were
known as the "People of Opinion" and were
opposed by the "People of Hadith." Abu Yusuf (d.
798) and al-Shaybani (d. 804) were key members
of Abu Hanifas circle of disciples who contrib-
uted significantly to the formation of the Hanafi
School. The Abbasid caliphs heeded calls to cre-
ate a more formal legal system and turned to men
of religion to help them do this, which placed
the Iraqi followers of Abu Hanifa in a position
of great influence. Abu Yusuf was appointed to
be the caliph Harun al-Rashid*s legal adviser and
chief judge of Baghdad, and he wrote a book on
taxation and fiscal matters. Al-Shaybani was like-
wise appointed by Harun to be a judge but spent
most of his career as a teacher in Baghdad, where
he wrote a number of legal works, which formed
the original core of Hanafi teachings. With the
full support of the Abbasids, the Hanafi School
evolved into an official legal tradition. Abu Hanifa
was given the honorific title "IMAM" and credited
not only for his own teachings and doctrines but
also for those of his predecessors and successors.
The school has been called the most liberal of the
Sunni madhhabs, especially for the legal doctrines
it espoused in its early years, but it became more
conservative in the later Middle Ages.

From their base in Iraq, the Hanafis established
new branches in the cities and towns of Iran,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia during the ninth
century. They were not as successful in Syria and
Egypt until the Ayyubid dynasty came to power in
the 12th century. In North Africa and Andalusia,
they failed to gain any lasting footholds. However,
after the precedent set by the Abbasids, the Hanafi
School enjoyed the patronage of later Sunni dynas-
ties, such as the Seljuks (1030-1307), Ottomans
(ca. 1300-1922), and Mughals (ca. 1526-1857).
Islamic colleges (madrasas) were established for
the teaching of official Hanafi doctrines and those
of the other major Sunni schools. Such efforts also
resulted in the production of authoritative hand-
books, manuals, commentaries, and compendia
of Hanafi law, such as Ali al-Marghinani's Hidaya
(12th century), Ibrahim al-Halabi's Xiultaqa al -
abhur (16th century) in Ottoman lands, and the
Fatawa-i Alamgiri (17th century) in Mughal India.
Governmental support, coupled with a long tra-
dition of legal learning and commentary, helps
explain the widespread influence the school has
gained in Muslim lands from the eastern Mediter-
ranean region to Central and South Asia. When
these lands were colonized by European countries
in the 19th and 20th centuries, their legal tradi-
tions were seriously undermined by the secular
civil laws promulgated by these new powers. Nev-
ertheless, Hanafi law was subsequently incorpo-
rated into the civil codes of many modern Muslim
countries, particularly in the areas of family law
and ritual. Among the places where Hanafi law is
still operative, even if only in reduced form, are
Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, lsracl-Palestine, Jordan,
Iraq, Egypt, eastern Europe, the Caucasus, South
and Central Asia, and Muslim regions of China.

See also Abbasid Caliphate; colonialism; edu-
cation; fiqh; sharia.

Further reading: Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolu-
tion of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), 150-177; Joseph Schacht, An Introduction
to Islamic Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966).

'Cas'S

288 Hanbali Legal School

Hanbali Legal School

The Hanbali Legal School (madhhab) began in
Baghdad during the ninth century. It was the
last of the four major Sunni legal schools to
appear and was distinguished by its preference
for making law based on literal interpretations
of the Quran and hadith. The school was named
after Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), the famed Iraqi
hadith scholar and theologian. It grew from his
circle of students, which included two of his sons,
in reaction to rationalist methods and doctrines
being advocated by the Hanafi Legal School
and the Mutazili School. Hanbalis believed that
they were defenders of the faith and of Gods law,
the sharia. In addition to narrow readings of the
Quran and hadith, Hanbali law was also derived
from the rulings (fatwas) of the Companions of
the Prophet that conformed to the Quran and
sunna and analogical reasoning (qiyas), but only
when absolutely necessary.

Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d. 923) played a major
role in creating the Hanbali School. He traveled
throughout the Middle East, collecting the legal
teachings and rulings of Ibn Hanbals followers.
He was also credited with writing books on theo-
logical topics and an early history of the Hanbali
School. Other leading Hanbali scholars were Ibn
Aqil (d. ca. 1120) and Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200),
both of whom wrote on literary and theological
topics as well as religious law. The most famous
Hanbali scholar was Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), who
wrote copiously on all major areas of medieval
Islamic learning and attempted to revive Islam by
calling on Muslims to restore the original religion
of Muhammad and his companions. The stringent
Sunni outlook of Ibn Taymiyya and other Han-
balis was reflected in their attacks on Shiism and
aspects of Sufism, especially saint worship. Nev-
ertheless, many Hanbalis were initiated into Sufi
brotherhoods, and one, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani
(d. 1 166), was even credited with founding a Sufi
brotherhood, the Qadiri Sufi Order.

The Hanbali School flourished in Baghdad
from the 11th to the 13th century, when it contrib-

uted to the strengthening of SUNNISM and defend-
ing the legitimacy of the Abbasid Caliphate against
its rivals. During this time, the Hanbalis also
established branches in Iran and Afghanistan,
but their most important new base was in Syria,
which replaced Baghdad as the center of Hanbali
activity after it was destroyed by the Mongols in
1258. By the 16th century, there were 10 Hanbali
religious colleges (madrasas) in Damascus alone.
The Hanbali tradition continued under Ottoman
rule (16th to 20th century), even though the
Ottomans favored the Hanafis. It enjoyed a major
revival when the Wahhabi movement formed an
alliance with the Al Saud of Arabia in the 18th cen-
tury. Today the Hanbali School is the official form
of Islamic law in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Saudi
funding and the annual gathering of pilgrims in
Mecca for the hajj have helped make it very influ-
ential among conservative Islamic renewal and
reform movements in Egypt, Syria, Indonesia, and
parts of South Asia. Modified forms of Hanbali law
and doctrine have also been embraced by radical
Islamic movements in many parts of the world.

Sec also ridaa; fiqh ; Islamism; Ottoman
dynasty.

Further reading: Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolu-
lion of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005). 150 — 177; Nimrod Hurvitz, The Forma-
tion of Hanbalism: Piety into Power (London: Routlcdgc
Curzon, 2002); George Makdisi, “The Hanbali School
and Sufism," Huminora Islamica 2 (1974): 61-72.

haqiqa (Arabic: truth, reality)

The term haqiqa is used in many contexts in Islam
with a variety of significations. It is related to
the word haqq (the true, the real), which is one
of the names by which God is known. Haqiqa is
thus often used in a more abstract way than haqq.
Unlike haqq, which is mentioned many times in
the Quran, haqiqa docs not appear in Islam's holy
book. Nevertheless, it has developed as an impor-
tant concept in Islamic philosophy and mysticism.

al-Haqqani, Muhammad Nazim 289

In Arabic and Islamic rhetoric, haqiqa refers
to the essential meaning of a word or expression,
as opposed to its metaphorical meaning ( majaz ).
Islamic philosophy has made much use of the
term in a variety of ways, but the basic under-
standing of haqiqa is as the nature or essential
reality of a thing.

The concept has also been taken up by Sufis, for
whom haqiqa is so important that it can be consid-
ered the ultimate goal of the mystic path, which is
attainment of true knowledge through experience
of the divine mysteries. It usually refers to hidden,
as opposed to manifest, meaning, and is often used
in contrast to sharia, the formal outward practices
and laws of Islam. While Sufis often focus on the
inner meaning ( haqiqa ) of a practice, most agree
that the formal practice should not, however, be
neglected. Sharia and haqiqa have, in fact, been
compared to the body and spirit of religion and are
said to operate together as two sides of the same
coin. Other Sufis have made these concepts stages
in a scries of mystical development, beginning
with sharia (formal practices of Islam), moving
through tariqa (mystical practices of Sufism), lead-
ing to maarifa (divine knowledge, wisdom), and
then culminating in haqiqa (immediate experience
of the essential reality), though the exact order of
these may vary for other Sufis.

See also baqa and fana ; Sufism.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: R. A. Nicholson. Studies in Islamic
Mysticism (1921. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1978); Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical
Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1975).

al-Haqqani, Muhammad Nazim

(1922- ) mystic and spiritual teacher who

pioneered the establishment of Naqshbandi Sufi orders
in Europe , Asia, Africa, and the Americas
Shaykh Muhammad Nazim Adil al-Haqqani was
born and raised in Larnaca on the island of

Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. He
claims descent from Muhammad (d. 632) on both
sides of his family, from the prominent 11th-
century Iraqi Sufi Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani on his
father's side and from the famous 13th-century
Perso-Turkish Sufi master Jalal al-Din Rumi (d.
1273) on his mother's side. Al-Haqqani received
a secular EDUCATION as a child and learned about
the Qadiri and Mevlevi Sufi Orders from rela-
tives. After graduating from high school in 1940,
he went to Turkey for his university education,
receiving a degree in chemical engineering from
Istanbul University. His brothers death during
World War 11 caused him to turn to religion for
solace and understanding. His religious studies
focused on Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence ( fiqh ),
and Sufism. His spiritual guide at that time in
Istanbul was Shaykh Sulayman Arzurumi, who
initiated him into the Naqshbandi Sufi Order.
In some circles, this shaykh was considered to
be one of the leading Sufi masters in the world.
Al-Haqqani's spiritual quest led him to Syria and
Lebanon, and in 1945 he became the disciple of
the Naqshbandi shaykh and visionary Abd Allah
al-Daghistani, who had immigrated from the
Caucasus region of southern Russia. This disciple-
ship was to last until al-Daghistani died in 1973.
Al-Daghistani instructed al-Haqqani to return to
Cyprus, his homeland, and establish a branch of
the Naqshbandi order. Despite opposition from
secular authorities, he succeeded in building up
a following there immediately after World War
II and returned for visits to Syria and Lebanon.
Later, he traveled to more distant destinations in
Central Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Asia, and
Russia. He began to make regular visits to Europe
in 1973 and visited the United States and Canada
for the first time in 1991 to promote his teachings
and win followers. It is also said that he has per-
formed the hajj to Mecca 27 times as leader of the
Cypriot pilgrims. Al-Haqqani has reportedly won
thousands of converts to his teachings around
the world. In recognition of his commitment
to resolving modern conflicts, he was elected

^ 290 ha ram

copresident of the World Conference of Religion
for Peace in 1999 and was a delegate to the United
Nations Millennium Peace Summit in 2000.

The Haqqani Naqshbandi order now claims
to have some 70 centers and branches in North
America, South America, Europe (including Rus-
sia), Africa, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Australia,
and Japan. The order has small followings in
Syria, Egypt, and Pakistan. Its U.S. headquarters
is located in Washington, D.C., and it is directed
by his deputy Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, chair-
man of the Supreme Islamic Council of America.
Despite his global journeys, Al-Haqqani still calls
Cyprus his home.

Al-Haqqani was given the title “cosmic axis”
( qutb ) by Shaykh al-Daghistani, but he has since
acquired other honorific titles from his follow-
ers that underscore his saintly status, including
"Sultan of Saints” (Sultan al-Awliya ), "Unveiler
of Secrets,” and "Keeper of Light.” He is also
called the religious "rcnewer” ( mujaddid ) of
the technological age. Moreover, the Haqqani-
Naqshbandi order considers him to be the 40th
sufi shaykh of the Naqshbandi sacred lineage,
which they believe was inaugurated by Muham-
mad in the seventh century. Al-Haqqani lectures
widely, and his talks are recorded and published
in books and pamphlets and on the Internet. In
addition to teaching about Sufi understandings
of love, faith, compassion, wisdom, and spiritual
practices, he has also included controversial
statements about the coming of a third world
war and the return of Jesus and the Mahdi, the
Muslim messiah. This apocalyptic strand of
thinking can be traced to Shaykh Daghistani, his
spiritual guide.

See also dialogue.

Further reading: Ron Geaves, "The Haqqani Naqsh-
bandis: A Study of Apocalyptic Millennialism with
Islam.” In Faith in the Millennium, edited by Stanley
E. Porter, Michael A. Hayes and David Tombs, 215-
231 (Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press. 2001);
Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Classical Islam and the

Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Islamic
Supreme Council of America, 2003).

haram

The great French sociologist Emile Durkheim
(d. 1917) proposed that religious life was based
on an absolute division between the sacred and
the profane. The sacred, he argued, encompasses
those things "which are protected and isolated by
prohibitions.” In Islam, the term that most nearly
conveys this meaning of the sacred is haram and
other words formed from the Arabic root h-r-ni.
It is used to describe the sacred quality of the
Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Kaaba as well as
other sacred places, such as the Prophet's Mosque
in Medina and the Noble Sanctuary (al-haram
aUsharif) in Jerusalem. Performing the hajj ritu-
als in Mecca requires that pilgrims enter into a
sacred condition called ihram before entering
the city. They must dcsacralize themselves when
they complete the pilgrimage. In many Muslim
cultures, such as Egypt, even a family's home is
said to have its sacredness (hurma). This means
that such places are considered to be set apart
from others and that access to them is restricted
and governed by rules and prohibitions designed
to uphold their sacred or forbidden character. Its
significance extends to female family members
and spouses who are considered to be legally
forbidden to others. This idea is reflected in the
word harim, which refers to either a sacred place
or WOMEN. The English word harem is related to it
etymologically. Haram is also used with respect to
sacred months in the year, such as Ramadan, the
month of fasting, and Dhu al-Hijja, the month of
the hajj to Mecca.

In Islamic law and ethics, haram has been
used to classify forbidden and unlawful practices,
in contrast to HALAL, which is used for lawful and
permitted ones. The Quran established the scrip-
tural basis for this distinction, mainly in regard
to ritual, dietary laws, and family law. Muslims
therefore hold that the determination of what is

harem 291

permitted and what is forbidden originates from
God. According to the Quran, for example, among
the things God forbids people to eat are pork,
carrion, blood, and food offered to other gods (Q
2:173). With respect to family law, it was forbid-
den to marry members of the immediate family
or their spouses (Q 4:22-24). On the other hand,
Muslim men were permitted to marry women
of the People of the Book — mainly Jews and
Christians (Q 5:5). Muslim jurists later refined
the absolute division between halal and haram by
devising a five-fold scale of categories ( ahkam ) to
classify all human activities: wajib/fard (required),
mandub (recommended), mubah (permitted),
makruh (disapproved), and haram (forbidden).
The ULAMA have often differed and debated among
themselves about how to classify specific acts
according to these categories. Acts classified as
haram were those that could be punished. These
included adultery, theft, highway robbery, apos-
tasy, idolatry, consumption of alcohol, and mur-
der. Usury, gambling, and making money related
to illicit activities and substances have also often
been classified as haram. Some Muslims regard
listening to MUSIC and dancing as forbidden activi-
ties, while some may merely disapprove of them,
regard them as neutral, or see them as permis-
sible according to the context. In the modern era,
debating what is lawful and unlawful has become
one of the foremost aspects of Muslim religious
life, one in which more Muslims are participating
now than ever before. These debates range from
basic questions about owning pets and how to
dress to more complex ethical and moral issues
such as abortion, euthanasia, and warfare.

See also crime and punishment; food and
drink; harem; suicide.

Further reading: Laleh Bakhtiar, Encyclopedia of Islamic
Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chicago: ABC
International Group, 1996); Juan E. Campo, The Other
Sides of Paradise: Explorations into the Religious Mean-
ings of Domestic Space in Islam (Columbia: University
of South Carolina Press, 1991); Yusuf al-Qaradawi, The

Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam (Al-halal wal-haram fi
al-Islam). Translated by Kamal El-Helbawi, M. Moinud-
din Siddiqui, and Syed Shukry (Indianapolis: American
Trust Publications, 1960).

harem (Arabic: harim and haram)

A harem is a separate quarters for women in a
palace or upper-class house. It is also a way of
referring to the women, particularly when they are
a mans legal wives, concubines, female servants,
and other attendants. The word itself is a render-
ing in Western languages of the Arabic harim
(a sacred or forbidden place or woman) and its
synonym, haram. The harem is also known as a
zenana in Persian and Indian contexts and as a
seraglio , an Italian version of a Turkish word for
palace (sarai).

Although often associated with the Islamic
religion and society, the history of the harem is
complex and varied, going back to the pre-Islamic
times of the ancient Mesopotamians, Persians,
and Greeks. The subordination of women to their
fathers, husbands, and masters appears to have
been a long-standing aspect of the patriarchal
organization of these societies, particularly among
rulers and other elites. By veiling his womenfolk
and keeping them in seclusion, a man could
demonstrate his wealth, status, and power. Dur-
ing the first millennium B.C.E., Assyrian kings
are thought to have had special quarters in their
palaces for women and concubines, and the wives
of nobles were required to wear veils in public.
The Achaemenid and Sassanian dynasties of Per-
sia (sixth century B.c.E. to seventh century c.E.)
were renowned for the size of their harems. For
example, Darius III (380-330 b.c.e.) was said to
have had one with nearly 400 women. Alexander
the Great (356-323 B.C.E.), the Macedonian con-
queror, defeated Darius in battle and took control
of his harem as well as his empire in 333 b.c.e.
Royal harems are thought to have become even
larger in the days of the Sassanians, who ruled
Persia and Iraq for several centuries before the

^ 292 harem

arrival of Muslim armies in the seventh century.
Khusrau 1 (r. 531 — 579 c.E.) reportedly had as
many as 12,000 women in his harem, probably
an exaggerated figure. In contrast, Greeks and
Romans practiced monogamous marriage, but
honorable women were still expected to care for
the home and their children, a notion supported
by the philosopher Aristotle (d. 322 B.C.E.). Greek
and Roman law excluded women from public life,
and they were regarded as children by nature in
relation to men.

The harem in early Muslim society reflected
the influences of the ancient civilizations that pre-
ceded it. Pre-Islamic marriage practices in Arabia
were diverse, and scholars have found evidence
for both polygyny (having more than one wife)
and polyandry (having more than one husband).
In general, women were becoming more subordi-
nate to their fathers and husbands in Muhammad's
time, and polygyny displaced polyandry. Muham-
mad had a number of wives and concubines who
were called upon to veil and live in at least partial
seclusion at a distance from others, reflecting, per-
haps, his status as prophet and commander of the
believers. Nevertheless, the hadith and early his-
torical accounts indicate that women could play
roles of central importance in the early Muslim
community, such as Muhammad's wives Khadija
( d. 619) and Aisha (d. 678). Muhammad's son-in-
law Ali bin Abi Talib (d. 661), the fourth caliph
and first Shii imam, is reported to have had nine
wives after the death of his first wife, Fatima (d.
633), as well as a number of concubines, while
his son Hasan (d. 669) is said to have married
up to 100 women. Such practices were followed
in other Muslim households, especially in the
following century as wives and children of the
defeated Persians were taken captive and adopted
into the postconquest Arab Muslim society. Per-
sian harem practices were probably adopted by
Arab rulers at this time.

The image of a palace harem of seductive
women, dancing girls, and slaves as depicted in
Arabian Nights fantasies is partly a product of the

royal court of the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258).
Royal wives and daughters had their own palaces
in Baghdad in the early days of the caliphate,
but, by the 10th century, they became secluded
in the palace of the ruler, out of the public eye.
They were attended by slave girls, entertainers,
and eunuchs; intruders could be put to death.
Reports that harem women intrigued against each
other to win the heart of the ruler or secure the
throne for one of their sons fed the imaginations
of Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries, fur-
ther contributing to the invention of exotic fan-
tasies about harem life that found their way into
fictional writings and Hollywood films during the
20th century.

New historical studies of Ottoman, Mughal,
and Persian harems of the 16th and 17th cen-
turies have yielded valuable insights about what
harem life was actually like and helped dispel
myths that have captured the Western imagina-
tion. This research has shown that royal harems
were highly organized complex communities
that assumed different characteristics at differ-
ent moments in history, depending on local cir-
cumstances, personalities, and configurations of
power. They often included non-Muslims as well
as Muslims. Upper-class women and children
were educated and trained in arts and crafts there.
Harem women exercised considerable political
influence in dynastic affairs and were not always
secluded from the wider society. A rulers mother,
wives, concubines, daughters, and servants were
involved in raising his sons and participated in
the politics of arranging royal marriages and the
succession. Indeed, some harem mothers and
wives, such as Hurrcm (also known as Roxelana,
d. 1558) in Ottoman Istanbul, Pari-Khan Kha-
num (d. 1578) in Safavid Isfahan, and Nur Jahan
(d. 1645) in Mughal Delhi, played central roles
in affairs of state.

Harem institutions came to an end with the
passing of the last Islamicate empires and the
dynasties that ruled them in the 19th and 20th
centuries. Nevertheless, they survive in the imagi-

Harun al-Rashid 293

nations of the West and in the palaces of a handful
of autocratic Muslim kings and sultans.

See also cinema; hijab ; houses; Mughal dynasty;
Ottoman dynasty; Safavid dynasty; veil.

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in
Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992),
17-19, 79-84; 116-123; Sarah Graham Brown, Images
oj Women: The Portrayal of Women in Photography of the
Middle East 1860-1 950 (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1988), 70-85; Ruby Lai, Domesticity and Power
in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005); Fatima Mernissi, Dreams of
Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (New York: Perseus
Books, 1994); Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem:
Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1993).

Harun al-Rashid (766-809) Abbasid caliph of
Baghdad who achieved legendary status in the stories
of the Arabian Nights

Harun al-Rashid was the fifth ruler of the Abbasid
Caliphate and ruled its vast empire from 786 to
809. A son of the third Abbasid caliph, al-Mahdi
(r. 775-85), he was born in the city of Rayy,
located near the modern Iranian capital of Teh-
ran. His mother, al-Khayzuran, was a former slave
girl from Yemen. She was known as a woman of
strong personality who greatly influenced affairs
of state in the reigns of her husband and sons
until her death in 789. While still a teenager,
Harun was appointed to lead attacks on Byzantine
armies in the West, which allowed the Abbasid
forces to reach the Bosporus Strait, near the city
of Constantinople, the Byzantine capital. Later,
his father appointed him to be the governor of
some of the wealthiest provinces of the empire,
including Egypt and Syria. He became caliph in
his early 20s, inaugurating a great medieval Isl-
amicate golden age. Baghdad, the Abbasid capital,
began its rise to preeminence during Harun's
reign. The empires economic prosperity and its
openness to learning from all parts of the known

world contributed significantly to the flourishing
of the arts and literature, Islamic learning, and the
development of medicine and the sciences. Harun
corresponded with rulers in China and Europe.
He was also a learned man who patronized artists
and scholars. A man of great personal piety, he put
the weight of his authority behind proponents of
the emerging Sunni tradition and maintained the
anli-Shii policy of his predecessors. Harun is also
remembered for having performed the HAJJ nine or
10 times. He appointed followers of Abu Hanifa
(d. 767), founder of the Hanafi Legal School, to
serve as legal advisers and judges. Abu Nuwas, the
foremost Arabic poet of the Abbasid era, lived in
Baghdad during much of Harun's life. The caliphs
wife. Queen Zubayda (d. 831), sponsored many
charitable works, most memorably a water system
for pilgrims going to MECCA on the annual ha j j .

Harun's portrayal in the Arabian Nights is
largely fictional, but it serves as a tribute to him
and the splendor of his court. He conducted
campaigns against the Byzantine Empire, but his
rule was marred by political unrest in Syria and
Iran. Also, Andalusia fell under Umayyad rule
during his reign. In his last years, Harun ordered
that the Abbasid Empire be divided between his
two sons, al-Amin (r. 809-813) and al-Mamun
(r. 813-833), which led to a devastating civil war.
Harun died during a campaign to quell a rebellion
and was allegedly buried in the city of Tus. Flis
son al-Mamun reunited the empire after defeating
his brother in battle. The height of the Abbasid
golden age was reached during al-Mamun's reign.

See also adab\ Arabic language and litera-
ture; Sunnism; Umayyad caliphate.

A. Nazir Atassi

Further reading: Andre Clot, Harun al-Rashid and the
World of the Thousand and One Nights. Translated by
J. Howe (London: Saqi Books, 1989); Tayeb El-Hibri,
Reinterpreting Islamic Historiography: Harun al-Rashid
and the Narrative of the Abbasid Caliphate (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999); Hugh Kennedy,
When Baghdad Ruled the World: The Rise and Fall of

' e ^ 294 al-Hasan al-Basri

Islam's Greatest Dynasty (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo
Press, 2005); al-Tabari, The Early Abbasid Empire. Vol.
2. Translated by John A. Williams (London: Cambridge
University Press, 1989).

al-Hasan al-Basri (642-728) ascetic and
theologian of Basra who defended belief in free will
and human responsibility for good and evil acts
Al-Hasan al-Basri was born in Medina, the son of
a free Persian war captive. Little is known about
his life, but some accounts say that he moved to
Basra (in southern Iraq) from Medina when he
was about 15 years old. He participated in the
Muslim conquest of Iran but spent most of his
life in Basra, where he became a famous preacher
known for his asceticism and profound piety. His
sermons called on people to renounce the world
and fear Gods wrath in the afterlife. One of his
most famous teachings was, "Be with this world
as if you had never been there, and with the oth-
erworld as if you would never leave it." Indeed,
al-Hasan was reputed to be the most knowledge-
able man of his time in matters of religion. When
the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705)
asked him to explain his views about free will
( qadar ) AND DETERMINISM ( qacla ), he composed a
brilliant defense of the free will position. Draw-
ing on the Quran, he argued that God had given
people the ability to perform an act or not do so. If
God had already predetermined peoples acts, the
mission of the prophets and their warnings about
Judgment Day would make no sense. This was a
controversial position to take, for it held people
responsible for what they did or did not do. Some
men of religion argued that this diminished God's
transcendent power over creation. Rulers did not
like such views, either, because belief in free will
meant that they, too, could be held accountable
for their sins.

Al-Hasan was honored in later generations as
a founder of the Mutazili School and the Ashari
School of theology. His teachings and stories were
mentioned in many works of medieval Islamic

literature. He was also embraced by the Sufi tradi-
tion. His name was listed in the spiritual genealo-
gies of most Sufi brotherhoods after that of Ali ibn
Abi Talib (d. 661), Muhammad's cousin. The Per-
sian poet Farid al-Din Attar (d. ca. 1230) included
several legends about him in his collection of
stories about Sufi saints, Memorial of the Friends
of God ( Tcidhkiral al-awliya ). These depicted him
as a contemporary of Rabia AL-Adawiyya (d. 801),
the famous female mystic of Basra, even though
the two probably never really met. In one account,
she rejected al-Hasan's offer of marriage by declar-
ing that she was already tied to God. Another
story tells of his throwing a rug onto the waters
of the Euphrates River and inviting her to join
him on it for prayer. Rabia countered by throwing
her rug into the air and inviting him to join her
up there instead, hidden from the sight of others.
A shrine dedicated to al-Hasan stands on the out-
skirts of Basra today.

See also fate; Sufism; tariqa ; theology.

Further reading: Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism:
Sufi, Quran, Mi raj , Poetic and Theological Writings (New
York: Paulist Press, 1996); David Waines, An Introduc-
tion to Islam. 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003).

Hashimite dynasty (also known as the
Hashemites)

Descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad,
the Hashimites have played a crucial role in
Middle Eastern history for centuries. Muham-
mad was a member of the clan of Hashim,
whence the name Hashimite. This term became
important during the rule of the Abbasid dynasty
(750-1258), as the caliphate used it to trace their
lineage to the Prophet and thus secure political
and spiritual authority. However, in the modern
period, the name Hashimite most often refers to
the long-standing custodians of Mecca (until it
came under Saudi control in 1924) and the mod-
ern rulers of Jordan.

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin 295

Rulers and custodians of the Hijaz and its
holy CITIES from 1201 until 1925, the Hashimites'
power base shifted to the newly formed nation of
Jordan once they were driven from Arabia by the
Saudi confederation. Through a combination of
their wealth, location, symbolic importance, and
political authority, the Hashimites have exercised
considerable influence in modern Middle Eastern
history.

The Hashimites of Jordan trace their lineage to
Muhammad through his daughter Fatima and her
husband Ali (d. 661), the fourth Islamic caliph.
Rulers of Mecca from 1201 until the Ottoman
conquest of 1517, the Hashimites nonetheless
maintained their custodianship of the holy city
until 1924. Their status as sharifs, or descendants
of the Prophet, and their long guardianship over
the holy cities gave the Hashimites a certain
authority among Muslims.

In 1916, Husayn ibn Ali (d. 1931), then sharif
of Mecca, organized an army that successfully
pushed the Ottomans out of their remaining Arab
territories. Led by his son Faysal and assisted by
the legendary British adventurer T. E. Lawrence
(d. 1935), otherwise known as Lawrence of Ara-
bia, the troops operated under the assumption
that a British promise made to Husayn would
be fulfilled: that, at the end of World War I, a
united, independent Arab state would be created.
However, the British did not honor this promise.
Instead, they encouraged the League of Nations to
create several new mandate territories out of the
former Ottoman lands that they and the French
could incorporate into their empires.

The Hashimites, soon to be displaced from
their traditional leadership in Arabia, were given
command of some of these new mandate proto-
nations. After a brief stint ruling Syria, Faysal
was driven out of Damascus by the French and
declared by the British to be king of the new
nation of Iraq in 1921, while his brother Abdul-
lah was given control of the newly formed nation
of Transjordan. Hashimite rule in Iraq ended vio-
lently in 1958, but by 1946, Transjordan received

its independence and became the Hashimite King-
dom of Jordan.

Since establishing themselves in Jordan, the
Hashimites have worked to create a legitimate
and unified state in a region with severe tensions.
The Arab-lsraeli conflict has brought hundreds of
thousands of Palestinian refugees to Jordan, and
the Israeli victory in the war of 1967 deprived the
Hashimites of their custodianship of the holy city
of Jerusalem. Cast out of their traditional leader-
ship of the holy cities of the Hijaz for nearly a
century and unable to rule over the holy sites of
Jerusalem since 1967, the Hashimites neverthe-
less entered the 21st century as important politi-
cal players in the Middle East, controversial yet
often-consulted rulers of a small nation wedged
between contentious neighbors.

See also colonialism; Ottoman dynasty.

Nancy L. Stockdale

Further reading: Beverly Milton-Edwards and Peter
Hinchcliffe, Jordan: A Hashemite Legacy (London: Rout-
ledge, 2001); Mary Christina Wilson, King Abdullah,
Britain and the Making of Jordan (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990).

heaven See garden; paradise.

Hegira See Hijra.

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin (1947- ) Afghan

Mujahidin leader and head of the Hizb-i Islami
(Islamic Party); although he received significant
support from Pakistan and the United States in the
1 980s, he was officially recognized as a terrorist after
the events of September 1 1, 2001
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an ethnic Pushtun who
studied engineering in Kabul, Afghanistan, in the
1960s. Although he may have once been attracted
to Marxism, he fell under the spell of the Islamic

296 hell

revolutionary ideology of the Egyptian Sayyid
Qutb (d. 1966) and helped organize Muslim
students against the growing influence of Marx-
ist political parties in Afghanistan. After being
imprisoned for his political activities in 1972-73,
he joined other Afghan radicals in Peshawar,
Pakistan, to plot a violent coup against the Afghan
government with the backing of the Pakistanis.
He was put in charge of recruiting support within
the army. When the coup failed in July 1975,
Hekmatyar escaped capture and execution and
proceeded to create the Hizb-i Islami, a radical
organization consisting of former university stu-
dents and ethnic Pushtuns.

Between 1978 and 1992, Hekmatyar and his
group conducted a ruthless jihad againsl Afghan-
istan’s Marxist government, its Soviet allies, and
rival Afghan mujahidin groups. He proved to be
a charismatic leader known for his strategic skills
and merciless treatment of his enemies. Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (1S1) helped
equip and train his forces during this time, and
he became the chief recipient of covert support
from America’s Central Intelligence Agency, which
was using the Afghan mujahidin in its proxy war
against the Soviet Union during the closing decade
of the cold war. After the Soviet withdrawal and
the downfall of the Marxist government in 1992,
Hekmatyar established bases south of Kabul from
which he conducted attacks against his Afghan
rivals. The civil war between Hekmatyar and other
Afghan warlords continued even after he became
prime minister in 1993. His most consistent oppo-
nents were Burhan al-Din Rabbani, Tajik leader of
the Jamiat-i Islami (Islamic Society), and Ahmad
Shah Massoud, leader of the Tajik mujahidin.
Kabul suffered heavy civilian casualties as a result
of the conflict. Meanwhile, the Taliban, a well-
organized force of Afghan refugees and war veter-
ans, was gaining control of much of the country
with the support of the Pakistani IS1. When they
finally seized Kabul in September 1996, Hekmatyar
and the other warlords were forced to flee the city.
After al-Qaida attacked the United States on Sep-

tember 11, 2001, he sided with Usama bin Ladin
but was forced to flee to Iran when the United
States invaded Afghanistan in October of that year.
Iran expelled him and the Hizb-i Islami in 2002,
and he has since gone into hiding. Hekmatyar has
consistently called for attacks against U.S. and
international armed forces and is considered to be
a terrorist by the governments of the United Stales
and Afghanistan.

See also communism; Islamism; terrorism.

Further reading: Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret
History oj the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Ladin, from the
Soviet Invasion until September 10, 2001 (New York: Pen-
guin Books, 2004); Oliver Roy, Afghanistan: From Holy
War to Civil War (Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1995).

hell See Fire.

Helpers See Ansar.

heresy

A heresy is a doctrine or belief that authorities
believe to be false or that deviates from what is
accepted by the mainstream or orthodox commu-
nity. In early Islam, emergence of heresies paral-
leled the competition over power and authority
that followed the death of Muhammad (ca. 570-
632). Muhammad's dual role of prophet and
tribal leader set the stage for the fusion of ‘Tight
religion" (orthodoxy) and righteous rule that
subsequently defined the office of his successor,
the caliphate. The holders of this office, caliphs,
justified their rule in religious terms and often
dismissed their opponents as religious deviants.
Heresies, then, were born in conflict and received
their stigma from the winning faction, which by
virtue of its power established the operational
norms of society.

It was the first civil war (656-661), or fitna ,
that gave rise to the earliest heresies in Islam: the

hi jab 297

Khawarij and the Shia. Both groups diverged from
what became the Sunni orthodox view of ruler-
ship. In fact, it was the divergence of these groups
that led to the military and intellectual assertion
of Sunni dominance. The first civil war produced
only temporary political unity, but it introduced
permanent religious division into the community
of Muslims. Over time, the Khawarij and the Shia
evolved into full-scale minority sects, with defin-
ing ideologies, mythic histories, and legal systems.
And within the regions that fell under their mili-
tary control, these sects had the power to create
societies that reflected their worldviews, like the
majority Sunnis.

Along with heresies rooted in political opposi-
tion, there were heresies of pure religious belief.
In fact, the number of heresies based solely on
belief multiplied exponentially as the Sunni tradi-
tion refined its views in relation to the range of
religious opinion voiced within the expanding
empire. Medieval Muslim sources list some 72
heretical sects in Islam. While exaggerated, this
number captures the diversity and richness of
intellectual engagement in early and medieval
Islam. Sunni attempts to police Muslim belief by
labeling opponents as heretical demonstrate the
extent to which religious unity was viewed as
essential to the health and welfare of the commu-
nity as a whole.

In the modern period, the idea of heresy
has largely fallen out of favor, though factional
disputes remain. When the label of heretic is
now wielded, it tends to be with the purpose of
polemic rather than prosecution, although in the
very recent period this latter, too, has emerged as
Muslims struggle to reconcile the Islamic heri-
tage with the intellectual challenges presented by
modernity. Nonetheless, what medieval thinkers
once labeled as heresies modern Muslims tend to
think of as alternative schools of thought.

See also apostasy; blasphemy; Ibadiyya, kafir;
Shiism; Sunnism; umma.

Jeffrey T. Kenney

Further reading: Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic
Theology and Law. Translated by Andras and Ruth
Hamori (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1981); Wilferd Madelung, Religious Schools and Sects in
Medieval Islam (London: Variorum. 1985); Muhammad
al-Sharaslani, Muslim Sects and Divisions. Translated by
A. K. Kazi and J. G. Flynn (London: Kegan Paul Inter-
national, 1984).

Hezbollah See Hizbullah.

Hidden Imam See ghayba; imam; Twelve-Imam
Shiism.

hijab (Arabic: cover, partition, barrier)

The practice of hijab, or veiling, among Muslim
women varies throughout the world. In modern
discussions, hijab usually refers to a veil that is
worn to cover a womans hair, neck, and cars but
not her face. The issue of hijab , especially as it
relates to womens veiling, is one of great debate.
The Quran uses the word seven times, mostly with
the meaning of screen or partition (for example,
Q 19:17; 38:32; 17:45). The word is often inter-
preted, especially by Sufis, in the sense of a veil or
barrier that stands between God and the created
world. Hijab is further elaborated upon in the
HADITH. However, the tradition of modest dress and
particularly of veiling women predates the rise of
Islam. Indeed, veiling was a common practice in
the pre-Islamic Near East, acting as a marker of
class, faith, ethnicity, and age in many cultures.

While the practice has varied through time
and place, hijab has become a point of debate in
the modern era. Non-Muslim imperialists often
used hijab as an example of the “inferiority" of
nations they wished to conquer, claiming it was a
discriminatory practice that should be abolished.
In the early 20th century, supporters of Western-
ization in nations such as Turkey and Iran used
the formal banning of the hijab as a symbolic way

298 Hij

of demonstrating that their nations were modern
and progressive. However, postcolonial nationalist
and religious movements have embraced the hijab
as a symbol of Islamic piety and cultural potency.

The contemporary debate about the hijab
reflects the complex nature of identity in a post-
colonial world. Those who reject the hijab often
argue that it is a symbol of patriarchal domination
over womens bodies, a socially enforced indicator
of womens submission to men. However, for many
women who choose to wear some form of mod-
est dress, hijab is a marker of propriety, faith, and
freedom. They argue that wearing the hijab allows
them to be recognized as “respectable" women,
giving them greater freedom of movement in social
situations where they may have otherwise been
subjected to sexual innuendo. They embrace it as
a way of rejecting the objectification of women’s
bodies as well as a marker of their piety. Also, they
adopt the hijab as a symbol of their Islamic identity
and view it as a historical connection to genera-
tions of Muslim women preceding them.

See also burqa; colonialism; harem; purdah.

Nancy L. Stockdale

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in
Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); Margot Badran and
Miriam Cooke, eds., Opening the Gates: A Century oj
Arab Feminist Writing (London: Virago, 1990); Fadwa cl
Guindi, Veil (New York: Berg. 1999); Fatima Mcrnissi,
The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of
Women's Rights in Islam (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wes-
ley, 1991).

Hijaz See Mecca; Medina; Saudi Arabia.

Hijra (Arabic: emigration, abandonment;
also spelled Hijrah, Hejira)

The theme of an epic journey from home into
the world can be found in the myths and sacred
histories of many cultures and religions. It occurs

in the origin myths of Australian aborigines and
the Indian tribes of the American Southwest. The
Hebrew Bible narrates the journeys of the patri-
arch Abraham from Mesopotamia to Canaan and
Egypt and the famous exodus of Moses and the
Israelites from slavery in Egypt to Sinai and then
to the “land flowing with milk and honey" — the
Holy Land. The exodus is remembered every year
during the Jewish feast of Passover. The New
Testament Gospels describe the journeys of Jesus
in Palestine, culminating with his Last Supper,
crucifixion, and resurrection in Jerusalem. The
book of Acts tells the story of how Paul and other
apostles carried the Gospel throughout the Holy
Land and then to Asia Minor and Greece. Among
the Asian religions, one of most famous events
in the life of the Buddha was his Great Going
Forth — his abandonment of wealth, home, and
family in search of enlightenment. The Islamic
“exodus" or “great going forth" is the Hijra, the
emigration of Muhammad and about 70 of his fel-
low Muslims from Mecca to Medina in 622. This
event was considered so important that Muslims
have designated it to be year one on their official
lunar calendar. The 15th century of the Hijra
began in 1982.

The word hijra is Arabic for emigration or
abandonment, but it was also given other mean-
ings in medieval Arabic dictionaries, including
“forsaking ones home or country and moving
to another place." English dictionaries often
mistranslate hijra as “flight." That the journey
of Muhammad and his followers was more of
an emigration than a flight is supported by the
details of the accounts about the event provided
by Ibn Ishaqs biography of the Prophet (mid-
eighth century) and other early Islamic historical
sources. According to these accounts, as Muham-
mad gained more followers from different classes
of Mecca's society, he also attracted the atten-
tion of the city's leading authorities, particularly
dominant clans of the Quraysh tribe. They were
angered by the Quran's attacks on their polythe-
istic religion and worldly attachments, which

Hijra 299

caused ihem to neglect widows, orphans, and
the poor. Some were outraged by the prediction
that those who did not believe in Allah would
be punished in the afterlife for their disbelief.
The Quraysh tried to impose a boycott against
Muhammad's clan, the Banu Hashim, to cut them
off from intermarriage with other Meccans and
from the city's commercial life. The boycott failed,
but Muhammad’s safety was seriously threatened
in 619 when his chief protectors died — his wife
Khadija and his uncle Abu Talib.

To secure the position of himself and his
religious movement, Muhammad sought new
alliances with tribes in nearby towns and soon
completed one with the Aws and Khazraj tribes
of Yathrib, an oasis town located about 275
miles north of Mecca. In return for their con-
version to Islam and sheltering and protecting
his followers, he agreed to serve as the town's
peacemaker, a role customarily assumed by holy
men in Middle Eastern societies. Muhammad
also sent one of his companions to Yathrib to
teach the Quran and win more converts. The
new Muslims of Yathrib were called the Helpers
(Ansar). Meanwhile, persecution of Muham-
mad and his followers in Mecca by the Quraysh
intensified; the weaker ones were physically
tortured or imprisoned. Muhammad ordered his
followers to emigrate to Yathrib in small groups,
while he remained in Mecca with his friend Abu
Bakr and his loyal cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib. The
Quraysh plotted to murder Muhammad and
invaded his house only to find Ali sleeping in
his bed. Muhammad had secretly escaped with
Abu Bakr, and the two of them hid in a cave for
three days before making their way to Yathrib.
After they arrived, Muhammad built the city's
first two mosques and established an agreement,
also known as the Constitution of Medina, that
called for mutual support among the Helpers,
the Emigrants from Mecca, the Jews, and non-
Muslim Arabs. The agreement also recognized
Muhammad as the leading authority of the new
community, the UMMA. Thereafter Yathrib became

known as Madinat al-Nabi (City of the Prophet),
or simply Medina.

Muslim sources also speak of an earlier hijra of
Muslims to Abyssinia (Ethiopia) between 615 and
622. Muhammad may have sent some Muslims
there to receive the protection of the country’s
Christian king, the Negus. Some of them returned
to Mecca before the Hijra to Medina, but most
seem to have rejoined their coreligionists in
Medina after 622.

The caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634-644)
signaled the importance of the Hijra in Islam when
he declared that it would be used to set the official
Muslim calendar in 638. Its importance was also
reflected in the division of the Quran into Meccan
(pre-Hijra) and Mcdinan (post-Hijra) chapters.
The Medina chapters contain most of the Quran's
ritual rules and social laws, which originally
applied to the governance of the new community
Muhammad had created after the Hijra. Most of
the authentic HADITH arc thought to have started
to circulate during this era. In Islamic law, the
issue of emigration was debated by jurists when
Muslims in Andalusia and later other Muslim
lands found themselves being ruled by non-Mus-
lims. Some jurists, especially those of the Maliki
Legal School, said that Muslims were obliged to
emigrate to Muslim territories, as the Prophet had
done. Others said that residence in non-Muslim
lands was permissible as long as Muslims were
allowed to fulfill their religious duties. In a similar
vein, sectarian groups such as the Khawarij called
for true Muslims to emigrate from territories ruled
by corrupt Muslims.

The ideal of the Hijra has continued to be an
important one for Muslims in more recent cen-
turies. Reform and revival movements in West
Africa and South Asia used it to organize oppo-
sition to colonial rule. Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (d.
1953) established settlements called hijras in
central Arabia, where Bedouins were indoctri-
nated with Wahhabi teachings. When India and
Pakistan were partitioned in 1947, the Muslim
migration into Pakistan was called a hijra. More

300 hilal

recently, leaders of radical Islamic movements
have called upon their followers to abandon Jahil-
\yya society, the society of infidelity, and prepare
for jihad against disbelievers in imitation of the
first Muslims of Medina. One of the most famous
of these groups was the Egyptian Jamaat al-Mus-
limin (Muslims Group), which was known to the
international media as Jamaat al-TAKFlR wa’L-Hijra
( the Excommunication and Emigration Group).
It was founded in the mid-1970s but quickly sup-
pressed by the Egyptian government. Hijra has
been used in a more secular sense by Arabs and
Muslims to describe their migrations to Europe
and the Americas to find employment.

See also Christianity and Islam; dar al-Islam

AND DAR AL-HARB; JUDAISM AND ISLAM; RENEWAL AND
REFORM MOVEMENTS; SHARIA; USMAN DAN FODIO.

Further reading: Zakaria Bashier, Hijra: Story ami
Significance (Leicester. U.K.: The Islamic Foundation,
1983); F. E. Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994);
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and States-
man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).

hilal See moon.

Hinduism and Islam

Prior to the advent of Islam in South Asia, the
subcontinent was home to a wide variety of reli-
gious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism, and small populations of Christians
and Jews. By far the numerically and geographi-
cally largest of these was the complex of tradi-
tions grouped under the rubric of Hinduism,
a geographical term designating the religion
of the peoples who inhabited lands east of the
Indus River valley, which runs through modern-
day Pakistan. The Hindu traditions developed
from the encounter between indigenous religions
devoted to particular places and deities and the
Vedic traditions brought by the migration of the

Aryans into the region, which began around 1500
B.C.E. The Vedic religion of the Aryans empha-
sized reciprocity between humans and gods, the
importance of sacrifice, and precise recitation
of the sacred scriptures to ensure ritual efficacy.
The Aryan social structure was highly stratified,
and caste hierarchy remains an element in many
Hindu traditions. The Hindu belief in a multi-
plicity of deities contrasts sharply with Islamic
monotheism. However, it should be remembered
that some forms of philosophical Hinduism are
monist in doctrine, a fact acknowledged by
Muslim travelers to the subcontinent such as al-
Biruni (d. 1051).

The classical period of Hinduism that preceded
significant Muslim presence in South Asia saw the
consolidation of cults dedicated to the great gods
Shiva and Vishnu and the goddess (Devi) in her
myriad forms (for example, Lakshmi, Sita, Durga,
and Parvati). By the 10th century, the major
philosophical schools had emerged, the epic talcs
Mahabharata and Ramayana were compiled, legal
and sacrificial manuals abounded, and the devel-
opment of a huge corpus of devotional literature
to particular deities was well under way. Hindu
traditions pervaded the subcontinent. Buddhism
was strong in the northeast and along the Silk
Road but was waning in influence in the subcon-
tinent as it waxed in Central, East, and Southeast
Asia. This was the world encountered by the first
significant influx of Muslims.

Islam first entered India through long-estab-
lished trade routes from the Middle East: the
Silk Road in the north and ocean passages in the
south. There arc signs of early communities along
the coast, where Muslims intermarried with local
people. In the north, the first area to fall under
direct Muslim rule was the Sind, conquered by
Muhammad ibn Qasim in 711. The next major
invasion was that of Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 998-
1030), who plundered the northwest region and
attacked Ismaili Muslims who had settled there
during the 10th century. Accompanying him to
India was the Arab polymath al-Biruni, who stud-

Hinduism and Islam 301

Tomb of Chishti saint Qutb al-Din Bakhtiar Kaki in
Mehrauli, New Delhi, India (Juan E. Campo)

ied Indian languages, sciences, customs, and reli-
gions. His record is the first textual evidence that
the ballyhooed antipathy of Hindus and Muslims
is overstated. Al-Birunis writings reveal a rich and
nuanced appreciation for a great deal about Hindu
culture. From the 10th century onward, the north
of India was dominated by kingdoms whose rul-
ing dynasties were Turks and Mongols. However,
research reveals that the greatest conversion to
Islam was in the regions of South Asia, where Hin-
duism was least firmly entrenched. This would
dispel commonly held views that conversion was
either the result of force or a desire to escape an
oppressive caste structure.

For most of the thousand years of Muslim
dominance in South Asia, relations between Hin-
dus and Muslims were largely peaceful, with
Hindu and Muslim rulers employing high-level
ministers from other religions and ethnic groups,
patronizing each others buildings and festivals,
and visiting each others holy places. This reached
an apex under the Mughal emperor Akbar, who
briefly introduced a new religious system called
the Din-i Ilahi, or Religion of God, inspired by
his conversations with scholars and mystics from
Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Jain, and
Christian traditions. Also popular in this period
and to the present day are the shared devotional
practices associated with Muslim saints, most
notably of the Chishti Sufi Order, which is cen-
tered at Ajmer, Rajasthan.

Religious differences, however, have in the
past been contentious in South Asia, as they con-
tinue to be to the present day. In spite of 1,000
years of rule, Islam never became the majority
faith in the region; at the time of the comple-
tion of the British conquest in 1857, Muslims
made up approximately 25 percent of the popu-
lation. As the Indian independence movement
grew and the British prepared to depart from
the subcontinent, Muslims sought guarantees of
representation in government and civil services.
The nationalists of the Indian National Congress
under Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (d. 1948)
and Jawaharlal Nehru (d. 1964) opposed the
schemes put forward by Muhammad Ali Jinnaii
(d. 1948) and the All-India Muslim League
for a strong federated state system. As a result,
when the British rapidly departed in 1947, the
subcontinent was partitioned into India and East
and West Pakistan. In a seismic population shift,
15 million people moved between the northwest
and northeast regions, and estimates of those
who lost their lives in the violent transition
range from 200,000 to 1 million. The legacy of
Partition in terms of Hindu-Muslim relations in
India has been traumatic. Indian Muslims today
remain vulnerable, less educated, poorer, and

302 hisba

politically marginalized, despite being about 13
percent of the population, or about 130,000,000
people (the third-largest Muslim population in
the world after Indonesia and Pakistan).

See also Ayodhya; Buddhism and Islam; Mughal
dynasty; Sufism.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: David Gilmartin and Bruce Lawrence,
eds., Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Iden-
tities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainesville: University
Press of Florida, 2000); Peter Gottschalk, Beyond Hindu
and Muslim (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2001); Andre Wink, The Making of the Indo-Islamic
World. 2 vols. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1999).

hisba (Arabic: counting, reckoning,
regulating)

The hisba was both the state institution for
promoting good and forbidding evil and the per-
sonal responsibility of Muslims to do the same.
Though the word literally means counting, it
came to be accepted as shorthand for the injunc-
tion from the Quran and the sunna requiring
the promotion of good and the forbidding of
evil, which was the subject of extensive debate
in Islamic law. Although the Quran suggests
that every Muslim must engage in this practice
(Q 3:104), considerable difference of opinion
existed concerning whom, how, and under what
circumstances a person should actively pursue
forbidding wrong in particular. In most cases,

Traditional public fruit and vegetable market in Cairo, Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

Hizb al-Tahrir al-lslami 303

scholars wrote that the duty applied only within
the Islamic community; women and disabled
Muslim men were exempt, and individuals were
not obligated to place themselves in danger in
order to suppress any evils of which they were
aware. The same verse was also understood to
mean that promoting good and forbidding evil
was a communal responsibility, which came to be
more commonly interpreted as empowering the
state to enforce the injunction.

In the early Islamic period, persons appointed
to enforce the hisba in the community were
responsible for ensuring that prayers were per-
formed properly, mosques were maintained, and
market dealings were kept honest. The hisba was
institutionalized during the reign of the Abbasid
caliph Abu Jaafar al-Mansur in 773 through the
establishment of the office of muhtasib , or market
controller, in the religious hierarchy of the state.
From this period, the muhtasib role in maintaining
public morality was largely confined to ensuring
proper conduct in the markets. Duties included
guaranteeing uniform weights and measures and
occasionally currency, keeping a record of prices
and preventing hoarding in times of famine, and
maintaining safe and clear roads through the
city. Though the office declined in prestige after
the Middle Ages, in many Muslim lands, these
remained the duties of the muhtasib until the
governmental reforms of the 19th and early 20th
centuries.

Where the rise of political Islam has led to the
establishment of an Islamic state or the introduc-
tion of a law code based on the sharia, the rcintro-
duction of the state institution of the hisba has also
often occurred. Saudi Arabia has a government
department called the General Presidency of the
Promotion of Virtues and the Prevention of Vices,
the most public face of which is the mutawain, or
religious police, charged with upholding moral-
ity in the kingdom. The state established by the
Taliban in Afghanistan also maintained a similar
department and police force. The governors of
states in northern Nigeria that adopted laws based

on the sharia in the 1990s have established sharia
implementation committees or sharia monitoring
police, both of which are known as hisba f in order
to assist the government in encouraging the popu-
lation to conform to the new legal code.

See also bazaar; ethics and morality; Ibn
Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad.

Shauna Huffakcr

Further reading: Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyah,
Public Duties in Islam: The Institution of the Hisbah, Al-
Hisba ji al-Islam. Translated by Muhtar Holland (Leicester,
U.K.: Islamic Foundation, 1982). Michael Cook, Com-
manding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Hizb al-Daawa al-lslamiyya See Daawa
Party of Iraq.

Hizb al-Tahrir al-lslami (Arabic, also
spelled Hizb ut-Tahrir; Islamic Liberation
Party)

Hizb al-Tahrir is a revolutionary Sunni Islamist
party, an early offshoot of the Muslim Brother-
hood. It was founded in Jerusalem in 1932 by
Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani (1909-77), a Palestinian
teacher and judge who had graduated from AL-
Azhar University. In the first years of its existence,
Hizb al-Tahrir opened branches in a number of
Arab countries, including Jordan, Syria, Lebanon,
Iraq, Palestine, and Kuwait. During the 1970s,
its belief that Arab governments were un-Islamic
led it to engage in subversive activities, includ-
ing coup attempts against nationalist regimes in
Iraq, Egypt, and Syria. Guided by its unbending
authoritarian religious ideology, Hizb al-Tahrir has
organized itself into networks of small, secretive
cells that have recruited followers in many parts of
the world. It looks for new members in mosques,
religious gatherings, and university campuses.
Its close-knit organization helps foster solidarity
among its members and insulates it against out-

304 Hizbullah

side government surveillance and arrests. Some
observers have remarked that it resembles the
Communist Party in organization more than other
Islamist movements, even though it is overtly
anticommunist and antisocialist in its ideology

During the 1990s, increased Western military
presence in the Middle East, the fall of the Soviet
Union, the break up of Yugoslavia, and the Pal-
estinian-Israeli conflicts provided Hizb al-Tahrir
with opportunities to extend its reach into Europe,
Pakistan, Central Asia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It
currently maintains a public relations office in
London, and its governing council is thought to
have headquarters in Lebanon. It disseminates its
ideas via numerous publications and Arabic- and
English-language Web sites. However, it is banned
as a terrorist organization in most Arab countries,
Germany, Russia, and all the Central Asian repub-
lics, where it has gained many followers in recent
years. British authorities have been monitoring it
carefully, especially after the London Metro bomb-
ings in July 2005. According to one estimate, Hizb
al-Tahrir has more than 20,000 members, includ-
ing recent converts to Islam. Another asserts
that it may have as many as 80,000 members in
Uzbekistan alone (Benard, 345).

The ideology of the party centers on the goal
of reuniting all Muslims into a single community
under an Islamic government called the caliph-
ate, which once ruled the early Islamicate empire.
This government is obligated to rule in accordance
with the SHARIA, the law of God. All other political
systems that govern Muslims are illegitimate and
must be overcome by winning public opinion.
Only by doing this will Muslims at last be free of
the burdens imposed by centuries of colonial rule.
Hizb al-Tahrir professes to be a nonviolent Islamic
activist movement. Its British branch, for example,
has joined with other Muslim community organi-
zations to raise funds for charity and to combat
drugs. However, police and security agencies sus-
pect that its members pose a terrorist threat. Its
publications purportedly equate prayer with jihad
and terrorism, and it has allowed for the killing

of apostates, or “those who commit aggression
against the sanctities of the Muslims" (Benard,
347). It has also been condemned for being anti-
Semitic and supporting suicide attacks in Israel.

See also anti-Semitism; communism; Islamism;

RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Further reading: Cheryl Benard. “Central Asia: Apoca-
lypse Soon or ’Eccentric Survival?'" In The Muslim
World after 9/1 J, edited by Angel M. Babasa, et al,
321-366 (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation,
2004); Shcrcen Khairallah, “The Islamic Liberation
Party: Search for a Lost Ideal." In Vision and Revision in
Arab Society, Center for the Study of the Modern Arab
World. 87-95, CEMAM Reports. Vol. 2 (Beirut: Dar
al-Mashrcq, 1975); Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of
Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2002).

Hizbullah (Hezbollah)

Hizbullah is a Lebanese Shii Islamist party led
by Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah (b. 1960). Its name
means Party of God in English, a phrase from the
Quran describing those who will triumph over
disbelievers and enter paradise because of their
faith (Q 5:56; 58:22). The modern Lebanese Hiz-
bullah grew out of religiously based Shii militant
movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s
aimed at fighting Israeli incursions into Lebanon.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it led the armed
resistance to Israel's invasion and occupation of
a significant portion of southern Lebanon and is
widely credited with forcing Israel's withdrawal in
May 2000. The party is committed to the eventual
establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon based
on the theory of Wilayat al-Faqih, or guardianship
of the religious jurist, developed and executed by
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran. However,
despite the theory's theological implications that
all Muslims belong first and foremost to a transna-
tional umma (community of Muslims), Hizbullah
has in recent years taken great efforts to empha-
size its Lebanese and nationalist identity.

holidays 305

Since the end of the country's civil war in 1989,
Hizbullah has participated in elections, assuming
a prominent position in Lebanese politics while
maintaining an armed presence in the south near
Lebanon’s border with Israel. While the move-
ment claims its roots in the period prior to the
Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, it is generally
acknowledged that Hizbullah coalesced as a fight-
ing force only with organizational and military
aid from Iran’s postrevolutionary government.
Other factors leading to its emergence include the
historical underrepresentation of Shii Muslims in
Lebanese politics as well as their economic and
social marginalization, both of which contributed
to a general mobilization of Shia throughout the
1950s and 1960s. In 1974, the Shii cleric imam
Musa al-Sadr founded the populist Shii Move-
ment of the Deprived and a year later its military
wing, Amal. In the wake of al-Sadr's mysterious
disappearance in 1978 and the increasingly dis-
credited secular Arab nationalist ideologies with
which Amal and its new leader, Nabih Bcrri, were
associated, Hizbullah's religious message gained
salience. In the early 1980s, ex-members of Amal
such as Nasrallah and Hizbullah's first secretary
general, Shaykh Subhi al-Tufayli, joined forces
with clerics and other supporters of the Iranian
Revolution to create an umbrella organization
to defend Shii interests. On February 16, 1985,
Hizbullah published an open letter announcing
its ideological and social visions and marking its
transition from a secret resistance movement to an
open political one.

Today, Hizbullah maintains close ties with Iran
and Syria, holds roughly 10 percent of the scats
in the Lebanese national parliament, and con-
trols many municipalities in southern Lebanon
and the Bekaa Valley. Additionally, it provides a
wide variety of social services for its constituent
communities, including job training, education,
and medical care. It also owns a satellite channel
called al-Manar (the Beacon), over which it broad-
casts a variety of religious, political, and entertain-
ment programs.

Since May 2000, disputes over prisoners, land
mines, and the Shebaa Farms have continued to fuel
low-grade conflict and frequent incursions by both
Israel and Hizbullah along the Isracli-Lebanese bor-
der, or “blue line.” In July 2006, the conflict inten-
sified once again against a backdrop of increasing
tensions between the United States, Syria, and
Iran over implementation of UN Resolution 1559
and Iranian nuclear activities. Much of Lebanon's
infrastructure was destroyed by Israeli air attacks,
and heavy casualties were incurred on both sides.
Ensuing diplomatic efforts focused on integrating
Hizbullah's military wing into Lebanon’s national
forces and promoting a sustainable long-term peace
agreement. Despite that conflict and efforts by the
U.S. government to marginalize Hizbullah, notably
through its designation as a terrorist organization,
the party is likely to figure prominently in Lebanese
politics for many years to come.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Shiism;

TERRORISM.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Ahmed Nizar Hamzeh, In the Path
of Hizbullah (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University
Press, 2004); Naim Qassim, Hizbullah: The Story from
Within (London: Saqi Books, 2005); Magnus Ranstorp,
Hizb'Allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage
Crisis (New York: St. Martins Press, 1996); Amal Saad-
Ghorayeb, Hizbullah: Politics & Religion (London: Pluto
Press, 2002).

holidays

The two most important holidays observed by
Muslims are the Id al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice),
held at the conclusion of the HAJJ during the 12th
month of the Muslim calendar (Dhu al-Hijja),
and the Id al-Fitr (Feast of Breaking the Fast),
held at the end of Ramadan during the first days
of the 10th month (Shawwal). These holidays are
observed with special communal prayers in the
morning hours, feasting, gatherings of family and

306 holy books

friends, and performance of charitable acts. Aside
from these celebrations, every Friday in the year
is considered to be an especially holy day because
it is the day of communal prayer. However, it is
not regarded as a day of rest like the Sabbath is
in Judaism (Saturday) and Christianity (Sunday).
Another important day for many is Laylat al-Qadr
(Night of Destiny), which falls in the latter part
of Ramadan. It commemorates the first revelation
of the Quran to Muhammad. Most Muslims, with
the exception of the followers of the Wahhabi
sect, also celebrate the day of Muhammad's birth
(M awlid al-Nabi), which falls on the 12th of Rabi
al-Awwal, the third lunar month. Another event
celebrated by many Muslims every year is the
Night Journey and Ascent of Muhammad.

In addition to these major holidays, which
are observed by all Muslims, the Shia observe
holy days commemorating the deaths of the
Imams (sacred leaders descended from Muham-
mad) and other members of Muhammad's family
( AHL AL-BAYT). The most important of these holy
days is Ashura, which remembers the martyr-
dom of Husayn IBN Ali (d. 680) on the 10th day
of the 12th month (Dhu al-Hijja). The Shia also
observe the anniversary of Ghadir Khumm on the
18th of the same month, which is associated with
Muhammad's designation of Ali ibn Abi Talib (d.
660), their first imam, as his successor to lead
the community. Members of Sufi brotherhoods
celebrate the major religious feasts observed by
other Muslims. In addition, they participate in pil-
grimages and festivals connected with saintly men
and women, especially members of Muhammad's
family and their descendants. These are usually
popular religious gatherings that occur at local
shrines at different times of the year. Some attract
millions of celebrants from far and wide, such as
the mawlid of Ahmad al-Badawi of Tanta (Egypt)
and Zaynab of Cairo or the urs of Muin al-Din
Chishti in Ajmer (India).

Muslims share some holidays with non-Mus-
lims. The most important seasonal holiday cel-
ebrated by people living in Muslim lands, Navruz,

is connected with the advent of spring. It is
observed in Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and
Kurdish areas of Iraq and Turkey on March 21.
Egyptians celebrate spring on Shamm al-Nasim
(Smelling the Breeze), which falls on the first
Monday after the Coptic Christian feast of Easter.
Moreover, secular national holidays are observed
in many countries with Muslim majorities. These
usually commemorate the country's independence
from colonial control, a political revolution, or a
victory in war. Some countries honor the memory
of their founders with holidays, such as Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) in Turkey and Muham-
mad Ali Jinnah (d. 1948) in Pakistan. Most
Muslims recognize the religious holidays of non-
Muslims, wishing them well on these occasions
and participating in feasts and parades. Non-Mus-
lims, likewise, often recognize Muslim holidays.
Such reciprocal interfaith activities occur both
in countries where Muslims arc majorities and
where they are minorities. In the United States,
there has been growing recognition by commu-
nity leaders and the media of Muslim observance
of the Ramadan fast. On the other hand, follow-
ers of radical and puritanical Islamic doctrines
have denounced the observance or recognition of
non-Muslim holidays by Muslims because of the
belief that they arc unauthorized innovations that
may lead Muslims astray. Outside of Saudi Arabia,
however, such views are in the minority.

See also bidaa ; moon; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Johan Blank, Mullahs on the Main-
frame: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Tanya
Gulevich, Understanding Islam and Muslim Traditions
(Detroit: Omnigraphics, 2005); Gustav E. von Grune-
baum, Muhammadan Festivals (1951. Reprint, London:
Curzon Press, 1976).

holy books

One of the most important features common to the
Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and

holy books 307

Islam is the primacy their adherents give to holy
books, scriptures believed to have been revealed or
inspired by the one God. Jews look to the Torah
(Hebrew: “teaching” or “law”), the revelation
given by God in Hebrew to Moses at Sinai, which
consists of written and oral components. The writ-
ten Torah includes the five books of Moses (the
Pentateuch), the Prophets, and the Writings (for
example, the books of Psalms and Proverbs). The
oral Torah, known as the Talmud, is said to have
been inherited by the rabbis, Jewish sages, from
Moses. It consists of the Mishnah (Hebrew: “rep-
etition"), a collection of legal prescriptions plus
extensive rabbinic commentaries. Scripture for
Christians is the Old Testament, which includes
the books of the Hebrew written Torah, and the
New Testament, composed of the four Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, letters of Paul and
other early church authorities, an early history of
the church (Acts of the Apostles), and the conclud-
ing book of Revelation. In Islam, the holy book is
the Quran (Arabic: “recitation '), which Muslims
believe to be the word of God as communicated
to Muhammad during the last 23 years of his life
(between 610 and 632 C.E.). It is complemented
by the HADITH, accounts of Muhammad's deeds and
sayings transmitted and assembled into books by
his followers after his death. Both Sunni and Shii
Muslims look to the Quran and hadith for guid-
ance, but the Shia prefer to interpret both in light
of the teachings of the Imams (divinely inspired
descendants of Muhammad).

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy books
have historically defined communities of religious
belief and action, serving as the basis for their
understandings of God and his creation, ritual
life, ethics and law, history, and ways to salvation
in this world or in the afterlife. Indeed, member-
ship in the Abrahamic communities is defined,
in part, by believing what is taught in them. The
communities, however, are not passive recipients
of scriptures, blindly following their teachings.
Rather, Jews, Christians, and Muslims continually
preserve and infuse them with new life from gen-

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cration to generation by studying and memorizing
them, using them in worship, and interpreting
and debating their meanings in accordance with
lived experience and changes in the world around
them. The ways communities give life to scripture
are represented, for example, by the Jewish rabbi,
a “master” of the Torah, who is charged with
teaching and upholding its commandments. His
counterpart in Islam is the alim (pi. ulama), “one
who knows” the Quran, hadith, and the SHARIA
(Islamic law). Any person who has memorized
the Quran is called hafiz, “one who preserves” the
sacred text. Muslims are obliged to recite short
passages from the Quran during their five daily

308 holy books

prayers. In Christianity, Bible readings are central
to Protestant life and worship, and the Roman
Catholic Mass includes a Liturgy of the Word,
which consists of readings from the Old and
New Testaments prior to the priest's sermon and
celebration of the Eucharist. Incorporating holy
books into worship helps communities maintain
their meaning through the generations.

Another way in which holy books are shaped
by religious communities is through canoniza-
tion, the process whereby religious writings are
formally selected, organized, and given authority.
When religious authorities establish a scriptural
canon, its contents usually become fixed. They
cannot be changed or removed, and new material
cannot be added. A canon of holy writings can
be elaborated only through traditions of com-
mentary and interpretation. Most Bible scholars
maintain that the Hebrew texts of the Torah had
been fixed by Palestinian rabbis by the end of the
first century C.E., while the Talmud, sometimes
called a second Torah, was fixed later in the sixth
or seventh century C.E. by the rabbis of Babylonia
(Iraq). Officials of the Christian church fixed the
New Testament canon by the end of the fourth
century. Islamic studies scholars generally agree
that the Quran achieved its canonical form dur-
ing the reign of the caliph Uthman ibn Affan (r.
644-656), who commanded that variant copies be
collected into a single official version.

In addition to being attributed to a divine source
and having a fixed canonical text, other factors
have contributed to giving a holy book its holiness
or sacrality. One is the assertion that it came down
from heaven. This belief is most clearly expressed
in relation to the Quran, which is thought to have
descended with angels on the Night of Destiny
(Q 97) from an archetypal book (Q 43:4 “mother
of the book,” and Q 85:22 “preserved tablet") in
the seventh heaven to the lowest heaven, from
which Gabriel brought it to Muhammad. The
heavenly origin of scripture is often connected to
the notion that even though revealed in history, it
is in some sense ancient or primordial. Rabbinic

commentaries assert that God consulted the Torah
when he created the world. In Christianity, Jesus
is the “word" (logos) that existed in the begin-
ning and then became flesh (J°hn 1). According
to the influential Ashari School of Islamic kalam
(dialectical theology), the Quran is the uncreated
speech of God and is coeternal with him. Another
important aspect of a book's holiness involves
the belief that the language in which it is written
itself is sacred, and therefore the scripture must be
copied and recited according to precise rules. This
is especially the case with the Hebrew language in
Judaism and the Arabic language in Islam. On this
basis, conservative Muslims also maintain that the
Quran should not even be translated, because that
would corrupt and distort Gods word. Moreover,
anyone who even touches the Quran should be in
a condition of ritual purity.

The identification of holy books with commu-
nities is expressly recognized in Islam. The Quran
declares that every community has a prophet who
conveys God's word (Q 10:47). It commands its
readers and listeners to declare, “We believe in
God and what was revealed to us, to Abraham,
Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes [of Joseph
and his brothers), and to Moses and Jesus, and
what was given to the prophets by their lord. We
do not make any differentiation between them
and we all submit to him" (Q 2:136). It therefore
associates Jews, the Children of Israel, with the
Torah of Moses and Christians with the Gospel of
Jesus. Jews and Christians are known collectively
as People of the Book (ahl al-kitab ), or recipients
of sacred revelations from God. In the Quranic
view, however, these communities ignored or cor-
rupted the books they received, as evidenced in
their failure to recognize Muhammad as a prophet
and the Christian doctrine of the divinity of Jesus,
which contradicted the quranic assertion of God's
absolute oneness and transcendence (for exam-
ple, Q 5:12-19). This made them disbelievers,
although the Quran also recognizes the common
ground they share with Muslims for also being
recipients of a holy book.

horse 309

Just as Christians had to define their beliefs in
relation to the Torah (the Old Testament), Mus-
lims had to do so in relation to both the Torah
and the Gospel. Because the received form of the
earlier scriptures has been altered, or corrupted,
however, Muslims must look primarily to the
Quran for guidance. With a few exceptions, they
have not consulted the Old and New Testaments
either in matters of religious belief or practice.
Nevertheless, as a result of being People of the
Book, Jews and Christians were allotted legal
rights under Islamic law as "protected" subjects
( ahl aUdhimma). When Muslims encountered
other peoples in the Middle East and Asia, despite
wars and confrontations, they eventually came to
recognize Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists
as also being religious communities that had
received holy books. In today's global culture,
traditional Islamic belief in a universal book from
which all holy books arc ultimately derived has
provided a basis for engaging in DIALOGUE across
religious and cultural boundaries.

See also Arabic language and literature; Bud-
dhism and Islam; Christianity and Islam; dhimmi;
Judaism and Islam; Shiism; tafsir.

Further reading: John Corrigan et al.,Jews, Christians ,
Muslims: A Comparative Introduction to Monotheistic Reli-
gions (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1998);
Frederick M. Denny and Rodney L. Taylor, The Holy
Booh in Comparative Perspective (Columbia: University
of South Carolina Press, 1985); William A. Graham.
Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the
History of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987); F. E. Peters, A Reader on Classical Islam
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994).

holy war See jihad.

honor and shame

Cultural anthropologists have maintained that
honor and shame are a set of cultural norms

and expectations that characterizes Mediterranean
societies, including Arab Muslim ones, but not
exclusively so. In the Mediterranean region, the
"honor and shame complex" stresses the value
of dignified comportment, generosity, and family
loyalty as well as bravery and independence for
men and self-control and modesty for women. In
Muslim societies, honor and shame are imagined
to involve the application of reason ( aql ) to con-
trol base instincts (nu/s), though parallel concepts
may be found in other Mediterranean countries
such as Greece and Italy. Where notions of honor
and shame exist, family and tribal identity is very
important, and honor killings, in which male
family members murder a female relative who has
transgressed a particularly serious moral bound-
ary, involve attempts to reclaim the honor of the
larger family group. Some scholars have argued
that the paired ideals of honor and shame are too
general to capture the important subtleties and
differences among Mediterranean societies. Oth-
ers have argued that these are European concepts
that do not adequately capture the cultural per-
spectives of the non-European Mediterranean.

See also customary law; women.

Further reading: Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments:
Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1999); ]. G. Peristiany and
J. Pitt-Rivers, eds., Honor and Grace in Anthropology
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991).

horse

Horses were treasured animals in the Islamicate
societies of the premodern Middle East, where
they served as mounts for warriors and became
symbols of chivalry and manliness. The most
famous breed is the Arabian horse, a small, swift
riding animal known for its beauty and intelli-
gence. Its strength and maneuverability made it
a valuable asset in battle, and it is credited with
having been an important factor in the successful
Arab conquest of the Middle East, North Africa,

^ 310 houri

and Andalusia during the seventh and eighth
centuries. Arabians were also used in the sport
of horse racing, and many race horses today have
Arabian blood.

Experts disagree about their origin. Some say
Arabians developed during the fourth or fifth
century in the Arabian Peninsula from horses
that had migrated from Central Asia. Others say
the breed originated in North Africa. Arabians
were introduced into Europe during the Middle
Ages, where they contributed to the develop-
ment of some of the best European breeds. They
declined in the Arabian Peninsula when modern
transportation and weapons technologies arrived
in the 19th century, but meanwhile they became
favorites among breeders in Europe and North
America. In recent times, the practice of breeding
Arabians has been revived in Saudi Arabia and
Jordan. An Arabian horse is the central figure
in Walter Farleys, The Black Stallion, a popular
children's novel (1941) and film (1979). Another
famous breed from Islamicate lands is the Akhal
Teke (also known as the Persian or Parthian
horse), indigenous to Central Asia and consid-
ered by many to be one of the oldest breeds in
existence. It has been embraced by the Turkmen
culture, which has strong nomadic roots.

The horse is held in high esteem in Arabo-
lslamicate literature. It was said to be the animal
closest in nature to humans because of its noble
demeanor. In the Quran, horses are described
as creatures that God created for men to ride (Q
16:8); elsewhere they are identified with women,
children, stores of precious metals, and land as
being among the beautiful things to be enjoyed
in life (Q 3:14). According to commentators, hav-
ing a horse in the house is a way to keep Satan
and the jinn from harming its owner. In Islamic
lore, Ishmael (Ismail) the son of Abraham was the
first human to tame a horse for riding, and King
Solomon was said to have ridden a winged horse,
like Pegasus in Greek mythology. The hadith
indicate that Muhammad rode horses and that he
even approved the holding of horse races (with-

out betting) in Medina. Also, he is said to have
used a magical horselike animal named Buraq
when he traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem and
ascended into heaven during his Night Journey
and Ascent. Among the Shia, the most famous
horse is the one belonging to Husayn ibn Ali ibn
Abi Talib (d. 680). This animal carried him to
Karbala, where he was martyred. It is also said
that at the end of time it will be resurrected from
the Euphrates River to carry Husayn once again
into battle against wrongdoers.

Horses were a favorite subject for poets, and
it is estimated that more than 100 books about
horses and horsemanship circulated in lslamdom
during the Middle Ages. These books often have
detailed descriptions of a horses physical features
and markings, which are interpreted as omens
affecting the fortunes of its rider. Technical knowl-
edge about breeding, training, and veterinary care
is also provided, but it differs considerably from
modern methods of horse care and training.

See also Arabic language and literature;

CAMEL.

Further reading: Walter Farley, The Black Stallion (New
York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 1991);
David James ct al., “The Arabian Horse." Saudi Aramco
World 37 (March/April 1986); Jonathan Maslow, “The
Golden Horses of Turkmenistan." Saudi Aramco World
48 (May/June 1997): 10-19; David Pinault, Horse of
Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in India (New York:
Palgrave, 2001).

houri

llouris are beautiful wide-eyed virgins who are
believed to await good Muslims in paradise. They
are mentioned only four times in the Quran,
which describes them as being pure, modest, and
like hidden pearls in appearance (Q 55:56; 56:23;
37:49). Much more is said about them in medieval
commentaries and stories about death and the
afterlife, where they are portrayed in sensuous
detail, living in luxurious mansions and palaces.

houses 311

Believers, especially pious men and martyrs, are
promised two, 72, 500, or even thousands of hou-
ris as wives when they enter paradise in reward
for their virtues and sacrifices. Sufi commentators
interpret them as symbols of heavenly bliss rather
than providers of sexual pleasure. Although there
is no consensus on the issue, some traditions
hold that believing WOMEN who go to paradise are
70,000 limes better than the houris and that with
their youth restored, they will enjoy reunion with
their faithful husbands. The linkage of paradise
virgins with martyrdom on the battlefield dur-
ing jihad first occurred in the eighth century and
was elaborated in the following centuries. It was
revived in the 20th century by preachers and
militant Islamic organizations. Radical groups in
Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, and Iraq have inter-
woven vivid accounts of heroic death in war and
descriptions of sensuous rewards in paradise in an
effort to recruit young men for battle and suicide
operations against enemies.

Further reading: Maher Jarrar, “The Martyrdom of
Passionate Lovers: Holy War as a Sacred Wedding. In
Myths, Historical Archetypes, and Symbolic Figures in
Arabic Literature: Towards a New Hermeneutic Approach,
edited by A. Neuwirth ct al., 87-107 (Beirut: In Kom-
mission bci Franz Steiner Vcrlag Stuttgart, 1999); Franz
Rosenthal, “Reflections on Love in Paradise.’ In Love
and Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of
Marvin H. Pope, edited by J. H. Marks and R. M. Good,
247-254 (Guilford, Conn.: Four Quarters Publishing,
1987).

houses

The house is not only a material object, it is a
place and idea where society, culture, and the
environment intersect. The human dwelling pro-
vides shelter from the elements, but it embodies
important cultural distinctions, such as inside
and outside, public and private, self and other (or
family and nonfamily), nature and culture, male
and female, and young and old. In some cultures.

the house becomes a symbol for order against
chaos, or it reflects the intersections of cosmic
polarities, such as heaven and earth or sacred
and profane. People invest significant amounts of
labor and wealth in their dwellings and domestic
furnishings, but they also invest them with their
sympathies and emotions. This sense of attach-
ment or emotional ownership makes a house into
a home.

The houses Muslims have constructed and
imagined embody all these possibilities, ranging
from the material to the symbolic and religious.
They have inherited the architectural traditions
of pre-Islamic indigenous societies, just as they
have appropriated many of the cultural and reli-
gious institutions of these societies. In doing so,
Muslims have also redefined their homes in con-
formity with their own distinctive values and pref-
erences. This process of redefinition has been an
ongoing one from the time of Islam's first histori-
cal appearance to the modern era, with all of the
latters revolutionary changes and ruptures, global
migrations, and technological innovations.

Traditional Muslim domestic ARCHITECTURE
has usually employed materials that are readily
available. Nomadic peoples make their tents from

Rural home in Qurna, Upper Egypt, embellished with
images and calligraphy celebrating the hajj to Mecca,
as well as protecting the home from evil (Juan E. Campo)

312 houses

the tanned skins and fabrics woven from the hair
of goats, sheep, and camels as well as from palms,
reeds, and grasses. Houses in villages, towns, and
cities in many parts of the Middle East, North
Africa, and Asia have traditionally been made
of raw or baked mud brick reinforced by stone
or wood if available. In rocky areas of Yemen,
western Arabia, and the Levant (Syria, Israel-Pal-
estine, Lebanon, and Jordan), local stone is used
for house construction. The urban palaces and
mansions of medieval Muslim rulers in Egypt,
Turkey, Persia, and India were made of profes-
sionally cut stone, together with baked brick and
wood. Houses made mostly of wood are limited
to forestlands, such as those of eastern Europe,
the Caspian Sea region, the Hindu Kush, INDONE-
SIA, and Malaysia. The Industrial Revolution and
colonization of Muslim lands by European pow-
ers brought the introduction of new manufac-
tured materials, such as steel-reinforced concrete,
aluminum, glass, and plastics. This has resulted
in the creation of housing that is often alienated
from its natural setting. Manufactured materials
and modern designs have also made it possible
to erect multistory apartment blocks capable of
accommodating hundreds if not thousands of
people in a single residential area.

The stereotypical “Islamic" dwelling is often
said to be the Middle Eastern courtyard house,
a complex of rooms situated around a courtyard
that is open to the sky but closed to the out-
side. Entrance is provided by a single doorway
or gate that leads into the courtyard. Windows
may be lacking or are placed high enough so
that passersby cannot look inside the house. The
courtyard is a work area and provides access to
guest rooms, private living quarters, storerooms,
and a stable. It also allows for air circulation,
an advantage in regions that have a hot climate.
Yet the association of the courtyard house with
Islam is a tenuous one at best. Courtyard houses
existed in the Middle East and Mediterranean
regions for centuries before Islam's appearance.
Moreover, after Muslims had established their

religion in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern
regions, both they and their non-Muslim neigh-
bors continued to use this house form as well as
others. As Muslims migrated beyond the Middle
East, they usually adopted the local domestic
architectural traditions of Africans, Asians, and
Europeans. Whatever traditional architectural
forms Muslims have used for their housing have
generally allowed for the accommodation of
extended families and varying degrees of interac-
tion between public and private spheres of social
life. There has been little evidence for an absolute
separation of public and private spaces, and the
same is true with respect to the segregation of
men and women within the house. Rather, such
divisions arc situational, depending on temporal,
social, and economic factors. The HAREM — a seg-
regated domestic area for women — is a creation
of wealthy landholders and urban elites, not a
product of Islamic religion per se.

The symbolic and legal significance of houses
in Islam can be situated, to an extent, in the
Quran and hadith, where Arabic words such as
bayt and dar arc used both for ordinary human
dwellings and for sacred places and dwellings in
the afterlife. The Quran asserts that God created
ordinary dwellings and furnishings to demon-
strate his grace to people so that they would “sub-
mit" to him (Q 16:80-83). On the other hand, it
also states that God has punished disbelieving and
immoral people by destroying them and ruining
their houses (for example, Q 7:74-79, 27:45-52).
Believers who give up their homes and emigrate to
God and Muhammad are promised great rewards
(Q 4:100).

The Grand Mosque in Mecca is called “God's
sacred house," and the Kaaba is called "the first
house created for people" (Q 3:96-97, 5:97, 5:2).
The hadith state that the Kaaba is an earthly rep-
lica of “the frequented house" in heaven, which
is visited by thousands of angels each day. In
addition to these sacred places, there is the house
of Muhammad in Medina, which consisted of
the private apartments of his wives facing toward

hujja 313

an open courtyard. This house became a sacred
center, and Muhammad is reported to have said,
“Whoever visits my house deserves my interces-
sion [on Judgment Day].” It was also a place of
communal prayer that served as a model for other
mosques in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and North Africa.
In popular Islamic usage, all mosques can be
called “houses of God.”

The chapters of the Quran associated with the
latter part of Muhammad's career (622-632) con-
tain ritual commandments and rules concerning
houses, both human and divine. The most impor-
tant pilgrimage command in the Quran urges
“people to perform a HAJJ to the house [the Kaaba)
if they are able to do so" (Q 3:97). With respect
to ordinary houses, believers are instructed to
request permission before entering a persons
house (Q 24:27-29), and they are to permit a
divorced woman to keep her house, at least until
it can be determined whether she is pregnant (Q
65:1,6).

Nearly one-third of the references to houses
in the Quran pertain to the rewards and punish-
ments that await people in the afterlife, paradise
is called the "house of peace," the "house of the
god-fearing,” or simply “the house" (dar). The
people of paradise arc promised dwellings and
lofty apartments among its gardens and flowing
rivers. Evildoers, on the other hand, will go to the
Fire (hell), which is also called the “evil house"
and the “house of perdition." Their shelters there
will be made of fire.

Even though Muslims do not adhere to reli-
gious building codes with respect to their housing,
they do employ religious symbols and amulets to
sanctify their dwellings. Many place verses of the
Quran, the names of God, or pictures of mosques
in Mecca, Medina, or Jerusalem on their house
walls. These forms of "decoration" are intended
to secure Gods blessing for the household and
to repel evil forces. In rural and working class
neighborhoods of Egypt, families decorate the
walls of their homes with religious inscriptions
and images when members of the family perform

the hajj. These pilgrimage murals often express
symbolic relations between the pilgrim's home
and the sacred houses of Mecca, Medina, and
paradise. Shii homes in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran
often display prayers for the People of the House
(ahl al-bayt) and the 12 Imams, or portraits of
beloved Shii saints and shrines. The use of reli-
gious symbols and talismans, combined with
efforts to adhere to codes of etiquette, hospitality,
and morality in the home, are believed to make it
a center of blessing with its own sacred character
( hurma ).

See also amulet; haram; harem; mosque.

Further reading: Juan Eduardo Campo, The Other Sides
of Paradise: Explorations into the Religious Meanings of
Domestic Space in Islam (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1991); Timothy Insoll, The Archaeology
of Islam (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999); Guy T.
Petherbridge, “Vernacular Architecture: The House and
Society." In Architecture of the Islamic World : Its History
and Social Meaning, edited by George Michell, 176-208
(New York: Morrow, 1978).

hudud Sec crime and punishment.

hujja (Arabic: proof, convincing argument;
also spelled hujjat)

The idea of a hujja , or proof, is expressed in
the Quran, where God provides true arguments
(proofs) through revelation against the false ones
raised by humans (Q 4:165; 42:16). Also, accord-
ing to the Quran, prophets can provide proofs
against those who disbelieve (Q 6:77). In other
contexts, hujja has been used most widely among
the Shia with reference to prophets, imams (sacred
leaders descended from Muhammad), and high-
ranking religious authorities. In this sense, a hujja
is a living proof of God's existence in human
form. One Shii sect, the Ismailis, has used it for
esteemed leaders who claimed access to the hid-
den Mahdi and engaged in missionary activities

' Css5D 314 human rights

(dmwa) on behalf of the Ismaili movement. The
term has also been adopted as a title to honor
Twelve-Imam Shii ulama, who may be called huj-
jat Allah (or hojjatollah ), “proof of God.” Among
Muslim theologians and philosophers, hujja has
been used in the technical sense of a convincing
or rational proof in a theoretical argument, such
as in debates over the immortality of the soul or
the createdness of the Quran.

See also authority; Shiism.

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their
History and Doctrines (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1990), 127-128, 561.

human rights

The relationship between Islam and human rights
is the subject of much contention in modern
political and religious discussions. Individual
rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of
assembly, and freedom of religion that found early
expression in the U.S. Bill of Rights, the French
Revolution, and more recently in the 1948 United
Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human
Rights form the basic framework of interna-
tionally recognized principles of human rights.
Together with additional covenants on political,
economic, and social rights, the rights of children,
and declarations against torture and discrimina-
tion based on race and gender, these documents
aim (some would say claim) to represent a set,
albeit incomplete, of universal principles appli-
cable to all persons everywhere.

However, some question whether these rights
are really achievable or desirable for everyone,
particularly in Islamic contexts. Those who see
Islam as an impediment to human rights often
focus on gender inequalities found in the sharia,
Islamic law, and the poor human rights records
of many governments in Muslim-majority lands.
They cite these as evidence that some essential
quality of Islam prevents the realization of human
rights for its believers. The vast majority of Mus-

lims and many non-Muslims argue, however, that
human rights are not only compatible with Islam
but integral to its core values of justice, equality,
and freedom. They criticize the cultural bias of
the current UN framework as placing too much
emphasis on the individual and call for a deeper
understanding of the rich cultural and religious
heritage Islamicate societies have to contribute to
the discussion.

The Arabic word for right, haqq (pi. huquq ),
also means truth. Muslims agree that the ulti-
mate expression of truth for Islam is found in
its holy book, the Quran, and that God (Allah)
is the final arbiter of justice. Human rights then
arc given to humanity and guaranteed by God.
They are universal and for all time. The Quran
discusses freedom of religion (Q 2:256), justice
and equality (Q 5:8), the right to a basic stan-
dard of life (Q 51:19), the right to participate in
governance (Q 42:38), and rights of inheritance
(Q 4:7-9), among others. It should be noted
that interpretations of these verses arc not fixed.
Rather, they often reflect the liberal and conser-
vative views of different sectors of society. One
can say broadly, however, that rights in Islam arc
conceptualized as belonging to the individual
and to the community, and the community's right
to function in harmony takes precedence over
those of an individual. In addition to this major
difference, some Islamic scholars (ulama) also
promote a vision of gender relations built on the
idea of complementarity, which refers to different
but equal and complementary rights and roles
for each of the genders. This differs significantly
from secular and feminist emphasis on strict
equivalence of gender roles.

The public discussion of human rights in
Islam has traditionally taken the form of legalistic
debates between ulama as to the meaning of the
Quran. While this continues to the present day,
additional forums appeared in the latter half of the
20th century. They include the Universal Islamic
Declaration of Human Rights issued in 1981 and
the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam

Husayn, Saddam 315

adopted in 1990. The latter expressly asserted
rights to EDUCATION, equality before the law, mar-
riage, ownership of property, work, freedom from
unlawful arrest, and freedom to express ones
opinions freely to the extent that these all fall
within the sharia.

Muslims are currently confronting human
rights problems throughout the Muslim world,
in Europe, and in the United States. Many of
the measures enacted to strengthen security after
the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United
States have disproportionately targeted Muslims
within the country as well visitors and students
coming from the Muslim world. In Europe, Mus-
lims face issues ranging from the wearing of the
HIJAB in French public schools to discrimination
in employment and housing aimed at growing
immigrant populations. In many countries in the
Middle East, notably Algeria, Egypt, and Syria,
Islamic organizations opposing secular govern-
ments through both peaceful and violent means
have been brutally repressed. Iran as a formal
Islamic state is often criticized for its dogmatic
approach to Islamic law. Critics of the govern-
ment are often jailed, and women are required
to conform to “Islamically proper" dress codes.
At the same time, Iranian women enjoy broad
representation in the national parliament, and the
non-state-sponsored press in the country is lively.
Across the region, efforts to create civil society
organizations (Jordan and Lebanon are nota-
ble exceptions) arc often thwarted. This affects
human rights organizations in general but also
groups that advocate for specific issues such as
women's rights. The latter has included in recent
years efforts to modify marriage and divorce laws,
promote women's suffrage, and bring attention
to inadequate public services for poor women
and children. The prominent Iranian human
rights activist Shirin Ebadi (b. 1947), a Muslim
writer, lawyer, and judge, was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 2004 for her work on many of
these issues. Other leading contemporary Muslim
human rights advocates include Abdullahi An-

Naim (United States and Sudan), Abd al-Karim
Soroush (Iran), Fatima Mernissi (Morocco);
Khaled Abou El Fadl (United States), Taslima
Nasrin (Bangladesh), and Muhammad Arkoun
(France and Algeria).

See also democracy; government, Islamic;

SECULARISM.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Abdullahi Ahmad An-Naim, Toward
an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and
International Law (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University
Press, 1996); Kevin Dwyer, Arab Voices: The Human
Rights Debate in the Middle East (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1991); Ann Mayer, Islam and Human
Rights (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999).

Husayn, Saddam (Saddam Hussein)

( 1 937-2006) dictatorial president of Iraq from
1979 until being deposed by American and allied
forces on April 9, 2003

Saddam Husayn was the most influential figure in
Iraq's modern history since King Faysal I (d. 1933).
He was a leading member of the Iraqi Baath Party
during the late 1960s, and, after becoming presi-
dent of the country in 1979, he maintained power
through the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) and Gulf War
of 1991. He was deposed in 2003 by coalition forces
led by the United States and Great Britain.

Husayn was born to a poor peasant family
in the village of al-Awja near the ancient city of
Tikrit, an important center for nationalist and
anti-British policies. His father, Husayn Abd al-
Majid, died before he was born, and he was raised
by his strong-willed mother, Sabha Tulfah al-Mus-
sallat, and his paternal uncle, Ibrahim al-Hassan.
He experienced a harsh childhood, which had
a lasting impact on Husayn. At about the age of
10, Husayn fled his immediate family to live with
his maternal uncle, Khayrallah Talfah, in Tikrit
and later Baghdad. Talfah was an Arab national-
ist army officer who might have had the greatest

- 4 = 5 ^

316 Husayn, Saddam

influence on Husayns developing political con-
sciousness, infusing him with nationalist, antico-
lonialist, and antiregime sentiments.

Husayn attended primary and secondary
school in Baghdad, where he became active in
student politics and was attracted to the pan-
Arab vision of Jamal Abd al-Nasir (d. 1970) and
the Baathist ideas of Michel Aflaq (d. 1989). He
joined the Baath Party in 1957 and was sent to
jail after becoming involved in antiregime activi-
ties. Husayn later participated in a failed plot to
assassinate ruling general Abd al-Karim Qasim
(d. 1963) soon after fleeing to Syria and Egypt,
where he completed his secondary education and
entered Cairo University to study law.

Husayn returned to Iraq when the Baath Party
seized power in February 1963 and was soon in
charge of the party's military organization and
the Peasant Bureau, which helped him build an
important constituency. But the Baathists were
ousted from power nine months later, at which
time Husayn married his cousin Sajida Talfah
and politically reestablished close tics with senior
Baathists. He was arrested again for antiregime
activity and sentenced to two years in jail, where
he continued his political activities and resumed
his education. This period left an important
impression on his tactics, forcing him to become
self-reliant, wary of opponents, and intolerant of
internal party divisions.

After escaping from prison in 1966, Husayn
played a major role in reorganizing and rebuilding
the Baath Party in Iraq, leading to the overthrow
of the regime in 1968. During the early years of
the second Baath government, Husayn gradually
strengthened his power base, championing party
unity, a strong military, an end to the Kurdish
rebellion, and a modernized society. He played
a major role in the nationalization of the Iraqi
oil industry, securing its income to finance his
reform policies. In 1979, Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr
(d. 1982) relinquished the presidency to Husayn,
who quickly purged his party and executed a
number of top officials.

Aware of the ethnosectarian structure of Iraqi
society, Husayn adopted a secular domestic pol-
icy that avoided any politicization of religion,
emphasized Iraq's unique character and history,
and developed a cult of personality as a modern
populist. Focus was placed on absorbing modern
technology and linking military and industrial
production. In terms of foreign policy, Iraq signed
an aid pact with the Soviet Union in 1972, which
lasted until 1978, at which time Iraq settled
within the American sphere of influence until
1991. However, Husayn sought a leading role in
the Middle East for Iraq, opposing a policy of
dependence on either the Soviet Union or the
United States, and favored establishing close
cooperation with Europe, particularly France, to
balance international relations.

After the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979,
relations rapidly deteriorated between the two
countries. Husayn believed the new regime posed
a serious threat to Iraq's internal stability and
favored confrontation. Soon, the two countries
entered into eight years of bloody and costly
war. Iraq ultimately emerged as the victor, albeit
an exhausted one. In the meantime, the regime
waged a harsh campaign against Kurdish insur-
gents, which culminated in the destruction of
villages, forced resettlements, and the use of
chemical weapons at Halabja. Husayn came to
believe that the United States and its allies were
unhappy with Iraq's victory over Iran and wanted
to punish him for Iraq's independent posturing
and the enlargement of its military arsenal. In the
post-cold war era, he began to warn other Arab
states about the need to resist American imperial
ambitions in the Middle East.

The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was spurred
on by Husayns need to finance debt incurred dur-
ing the war with Iran, his belief that Kuwait was
historically an integral part of Iraq, and conflict-
ing signals he received from the United States.
This event revealed Husayns high ambition and
self-confidence, which allowed him to consult
widely while ultimately making decisions alone

Husayni, Muhammad Amin al- 317

and sometimes taking gambles. The invasion
resulted in a devastating loss against a 30-state
coalition led by the United States. Over the fol-
lowing decade, Husayn fought for the survival
of his regime and to maintain Iraq's territorial
unity and sovereignty. He ultimately lost the
battle to stay in power following the 2003 U.S.-
British invasion of Iraq. After his capture by the
U.S. military, he continued to deny that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction. In 2005, he and a
number of former Baathist associates were placed
on trial by a special Iraqi tribunal for genocide,
crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Saddam
Husayn was sentenced to death and hanged on
December 30, 2006.

See also Gulf States; Gulf Wars; secularism.

Gregory Mack

Further reading: Shiva Balaghi, Saddam Hussein: A
Biography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006);
Kanan Makiya, The Monument: Art and Vulgarity in Sad-
dam Hussein's Iraq (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004); Judith
Miller and Laurie Mylroie, Saddam Hussein and the Cri-
sis in the Gulf (New York: Times Books, 1990).

Husayni, Muhammad Amin al- (Husseini)

(1895-1 974) influential Mufti of Jerusalem and
Palestinian nationalist leader

Perhaps the most influential spiritual and politi-
cal leader of the Palestinians before the “calam-
ity” ( nakba ) of 1948, Hajj Amin al-Husayni used
his position to attempt to thwart Zionist plans to
establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Born into
one of Jerusalem's most notable Muslim families,
al-Husayni was educated at al-Azhar in Egypt
and Istanbul's Ottoman War College. An officer
in the Ottoman Army in Anatolia during World
War I, he was appalled by the creation of the
British mandate over Palestine and especially the
1917 Balfour Declaration, which established the
British desire to create a national home for Jews
in Palestine.

By 1920, al-Husayni was very active in his
public opposition to Zionist settlement in Pal-
estine. Despite his activism, however, when the
British mandatory powers established the coun-
try's Supreme Muslim Council in 1921, Herbert
Samuel, Britain's high commissioner of Palestine,
declared al-Husayni its leader and grand mufti
of Jerusalem. The Supreme Muslim Council was
made responsible for managing all of the waqfs
(religious endowments) of Palestine, as well as
the sharia courts and Islamic schools. With his
prominent new post, al-Husayni became the
most prominent religious authority for Palestine's
Muslims.

As mufti, al-Husayni used his power to focus
on two crucial goals. The first was to organize
the Palestinian population against the creation
of a Jewish state, and the second was to promote
the centrality of Jerusalem as a sacred Muslim
city. Throughout the 1920s, the Supreme Muslim
Council raised money throughout Muslim lands
for the renovation of the Haram al-Sharif (Noble
Sanctuary/Templc Mount), promoting the promi-
nence of Jerusalem as an Islamicate city under
attack by the Zionists, who were not only Jews
but also largely secular. He also hosted two impor-
tant pan-Islamic conferences in 1928 and 1931 at
the Aqsa mosque, spreading his fame far beyond
Palestine's borders.

With his extensive family connections and the
power granted his position as mufti, al-Husayni
was able to transform his religious leadership
into political authority. When cooperation with
the British mandate failed and the Arab revolt
of 1936-39 broke out, al-Husayni declared his
support for the uprising. The British responded
by issuing a warrant for his arrest and dismissing
him from his position as the leader of the Supreme
Muslim Council in September 1937. Al-Husayni
spent the next decade working against the Brit-
ish, first in Baghdad trying to foment uprising
against their authority, and then, during World
War II, working in Germany as an adviser to the
Nazi regime.

'CSS^!

318 Husayn ibn AM, Sharif of Mecca

When the United Nations announced its parti-
tion plan for Palestine in 1947, al-Husayni, still in
exile, rejected it and called for Muslims to rise up
in support of the Palestinians and against a Zion-
ist state in the Muslim holy land. In the wake of
the defeat of the Palestinians, al-Husayni spent
the rest of his life traveling throughout Muslim-
majority lands speaking on behalf of the Palestin-
ian nationalist cause and denouncing the creation
of Israel.

See also Arab-Israf.li conflicts.

Nancy L. Stockdale

Further reading: William L. Cleveland, A History of the
Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Westvicw Press,
2000); Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj
Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).

Husayn ibn Ali, Sharif of Mecca (1854-

1931) ruler of Mecca who allied with Great Britain
and led the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule during
World War I

A dynamic hut ultimately flawed political leader,
Husayn ibn Ali was a fundamental player in the
breakdown of Ottoman authority over Arabia.
Self-declared caliph of the Arabs, he lost his
family's centuries-old custodianship of Mecca
and Medina yet lived to see his sons take control
of new Arab nations carved from the Ottoman
Empire.

Husayn ibn Ali was born around 1854 in the
Ottoman capital of Istanbul (Constantinople).
A member of the Hashimite clan, his family
had either ruled or held guardianship as sharifs
(descendants of Muhammad) over the holy cit-
ies of Mecca and Medina since 1201. In 1908,
Husayn himself became emir (commander, ruler)
of Mecca. As the sharif and emir, he used his
descent from the prophet Muhammad to legiti-
mate his authority over the holy cities and worked
to keep the peace of the Hijaz for the ruling Otto-

man Empire. Despite his privileged position under
the Turks, however, Husayn gained international
attention with a variety of anti-Ottoman policies
during World War 1. In a series of letters between
himself and Britain’s high commissioner of Egypt,
Sir Henry McMahon, written between July 1915
and March 1916 (known as the McMahon-Husayn
correspondence), Husayn pledged to raise an
army against the Ottomans in exchange for Brit-
ish assistance in establishing an independent Arab
state after the war. Claiming to be the king of the
Arabs, Husayn disagreed with McMahon about
the boundaries of a future state but nevertheless
raised an army that successfully displaced the
Ottomans from most of the Hijaz in 1916.

The Arab revolt continued to the Red Sea at
Aqaba in 1917 and on to Damascus in 1918. Led by
his son Faysal (d. 1933), Husayns army was a deci-
sive factor in bringing the Ottomans to their knees
in the region. However, at the San Remo Confer-
ence, Britain and France divided the Arab territo-
ries of the now-defunct Ottoman Empire between
themselves, destroying Husayns idea of a united
Hashimite Arab kingdom. His son Faysal was even-
tually made king of the newly created Iraq, while
his son Abd Allah (d. 1951) became king of the
new nation of Transjordan (now Jordan).

Despite the new political landscape, Husayn
declared himself caliph in March 1924 from his
base in Mecca. However, by October of that year,
he was forced to flee by the Saudi forces. Defeated,
he made his way to Cyprus, where he lived in exile
until 1930. For his final year of life, Husayn lived
in Amman, the capital of Transjordan. It was there
that he died, exiled from his family's traditional
place as custodians of the holy cities, in 1931.

See also colonialism; Hashimite dynasty;
Ottoman dynasty; Saudi Arabia.

Nancy L. Stockdale

Further reading: Haifa Alangari, The Struggle for Power
in Arabia: Ibn Saud, Hussein and Great Britain, 1 914-1 924
(New York: Ithaca Press, 1998); William L. Cleveland. A
History of the Modem Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: West-

Husayniyya 319

view Press, 2000); David Fromkin, A Peace to End All
Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of
the Modern Middle East (New York: Henry Holt, 1989).

Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib (also
Husain and Hussein) (626-680) grandson of
the prophet Muhammad and third imam of the Shia,
martyred at Karbala

Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, left no sons and
only two grandsons, Hasan and Husayn, who were
born of his daughter Fatima (d. 633) and his trusted
cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib. Muhammad is remem-
bered to have been remarkably affectionate toward
his grandsons, especially the younger, Husayn, who
was six years old when his grandfather died.

Husayn was born in Medina in 626. Along
with his brother, he accompanied his father, Ali,
on military campaigns. After the death of Ali
(the fourth caliph, though his followers thought
he should have been the first) in 661, Hasan
claimed the CALIPHATE but soon renounced his
claim under pressure from Muawiya, who had
gathered military support in order to take over
the caliphate for himself. Obedient to his brother,
Husayn also acknowledged Muawiya as caliph
and continued to do so even after Hasans death in
669. He refused, however, to recognize Muawiya’s
son Yazid (r. 680-683), who was known as an
immoral tyrant, as heir apparent.

When Muawiya died in 680, the governor of
Medina attempted to force Husayn to pay hom-
age to Yazid, but Husayn fled to Mecca. There he
received word from citizens of Kufa in Iraq, who
were sought to oppose the Umayyad Caliphate with
Husayn as their leader. Despite warnings of the
dangers of such a revolt, Husayn left Mecca with a
small group of family and supporters to meet with
his followers in Kufa. On the way, he was con-
fronted by Umayyad forces, and attempts at nego-
tiation failed. Husayns party eventually camped at
a site in the desert known as Karbala. Husayn had
learned that his followers in Kufa had abandoned
him, and, being trapped in the desert and cut off

from water, he gave his supporters the opportu-
nity to flee during the night, but they remained
by his side, knowing that they were greatly out-
numbered and had little chance of surviving. On
10 Muharram (Ashura), Husayn again refused to
surrender, and fighting began. Though they fought
courageously, the men of Husayns party were mas-
sacred, and Husayn too was killed. His head was
cut off and sent to Yazid in Damascus along with
the women and CHILDREN of his party, including his
sister Zaynab and his son Ali, who would become
the fourth Imam, Zayn al-Abidin (d. 713).

The spilling of the blood of the Prophet's last
grandson was an emotional event that touched all
Muslims, but for the Shia it was a tragedy that dra-
matically symbolized injustice and oppression. With
this event, martyrdom became a distinctive charac-
teristic of Shiism and Husayn the archetypal martyr.
His death at Karbala has been recounted in count-
less books and poems and is reenacted every year
on 10 Muharram in emotional theatrical dramatiza-
tions often accompanied by mourners beating and
slashing their bodies with razors to commemorate
the shedding of the blood of Husayn.

See also ahl al-bayt; Twelve-Imam Shiism.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Mahmoud Ayoub. Redemptive Suffer-
ing in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of Ashura
in Twelver Shiism (The Hague: Moulon, 1978); Peter
Chclkowski. cd., Taziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran (New
York: New York University Press, 1979); Moojan Momen,
An Introduction to Shii Islam: The Histoiy and Doctrines
of Twelver Shiism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1985); Allamah Savyid Muhammad Husayn Taba-
tabai. Shiite Islam. Translated by Seyyed Hosscin Nasr
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975).

Husayniyya (Arabic, based on the name
Husayn; also spelled Hosayniyya)

A Husayniyya is a ritual hall, room, or build-
ing where the Shia gather to commemorate the

320 Husayniyya

martyrdom of the third Imam, Husayn ibn Ali (d.
680), who died on the battlefield of Karbala in
Iraq. Historically, it began in 10th-century Iraq
with tents that were erected temporarily for Ashura
observances at the beginning of Muharram, the
first month on the Islamic calendar. Later, these
observances were conducted in palaces, houses,
or open spaces. In the era of the Safavid dynasty
(1301-1722), when the name Husayniyya was
lirst coined, Iranian and Iraqi Shii Muslims made
it a more fixed structure attached to a house or a
self-standing building.

The idea of creating a special ritual gather-
ing place for Ashura observances subsequently
spread beyond Iraq and Iran to Shii communities
in other parts of the world. As a consequence of
its growing popularity and adaptation to different
Shii localities, it became known under a variety of
other names, such as takiya (place of piety) and
zaynabiyya (in honor of Husayn's sister Zaynab)

in Iran; matam (funeral house) in Bahrain and
Oman; and imambarah (enclosure of the Imam),
imambargah (Imam building), azakbana (mourn-
ing house), ashurkhana (Ashura house), and
taaziyakhana (condolence house) in India, Ban-
gladesh, and Pakistan. These constructions were
financed by donations from wealthy Muslim mer-
chants, landlords, or nobles, and by vvaq/s, which
were income-producing properties set aside by the
donor as perpetual endowments for the benefit of
the community. As a form of Islamic ARCHITEC-
TURE, the Husayniyya assumed a variety of forms.
It does not resemble the MOSQUE so much as it
does the hbanqab and TEKKE, where Sufis gather at
appointed times to remember God and honor the
memories of Muhammad and the Sufi saints and
spiritual masters. Although some are of consider-
able size, most are modest structures.

The size and number of llusayniyyas have
been affected by the degree of prosperity in the

Husayniyya in Bahrain (Juan E . Campo )

hypocrites 321

local community and the attitudes of the rulers.
For example, it is estimated that in the early 19th
century, the north Indian city of Lucknow had as
many as 8,000 Husayniyyas and takiyas under its
pro-Shii rulers, the Nawwabs, while the region
of Khorasan in Iran today has some 2,000 such
structures. Sunni Wahhabis, on the other hand,
destroyed Husayniyyas in the past and strictly
control their proliferation in the Eastern Province
of Saudi Arabia today. Shii immigrant communi-
ties living in North America and Europe have
built their own Husayniyyas.

The ritual practices conducted at the Husayni-
yya have varied, often depending on local commu-
nity custom. Generally, they arc governed by what
one scholar has called the “Karbala paradigm,"
which involves the commemoration of events sur-
rounding the martyrdom of Husayn and his loyal
followers. Rituals include long, moving recitations
of elegiac poems (sing, marthiyya ) that employ
themes of divine justice and worldly injustice,
death, and suffering. Such recitations often pro-
voke outbursts of weeping among participants.
The Husayniyya, often decorated with banners,
religious portraiture, emblems, and Karbala mod-
els, is where ritual objects used in Ashura proces-
sions arc stored, and affiliated members organize
the Ashura processions and related ritual perfor-
mances. In many communities, participants in
Husayniyya rituals beat their chests in rhythmic
unison or afflict their bodies by self-flagellation,
which can induce copious bleeding — a demon-
stration of ones piety, devotion, manliness, and
atonement for ones sins. Theatrical reenactments,
including musical performances and costumed
actors, of moments in Shii sacred history, culmi-
nating with Husayns death, are staged at Husayni-
yyas and takiyas in Iran. Husayniyyas are also
where people gather for prayer, other religious
holidays, and funerals.

Traditionally, Husayniyyas have been reli-
gious places for men, while women have con-
ducted their Ashura rites at home, although they
also watch and participate in public processions.

In recent years, women in some countries have
established their own Husayniyyas, using them
as centers of education and political activity,
as has happened in Bahraini matams in recent
years. The modern transformation of Husayni-
yyas into political focal points occurred in Iran
in the 1960s and 1970s, when Iranians became
actively involved in antigovernment activities
that eventually led to the Iranian Revolution
OF 1978-1979. The most famous example is the
Husayniyya-i Irashad, founded in 1965 in the
Iranian capital, Tehran. It had male and female
members and offered films and a forum for the
expression of new religious and political ideas.
It engaged ULAMA and laity alike and featured
the lectures of Ali Shariati (d. 1977), whose
revolutionary talks rallied people against the
government.

See also Shiism; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Kamran Scot Aghaie, cd., The Women
of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses
in Modern Shii Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2005); Juan R. I. Cole, Roots of North Indian Shiism in
Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722-1859
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Vernon
James Schubel, “Karbala as Sacred Space among North
American Shia: ’Every' Day Is Ashura, Everywhere Is
Karbala. " In Making Muslim Space in North America and
Europe, edited by Barbara Metcalf. 186-203 (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996).

hypocrites

A hypocrite is someone whose actions contradict
his or her outwardly stated beliefs or values. In
early Islamic history, the "hypocrites" (Arabic
munafiqun, fern, numafiqat), also called “dissem-
blers" and “dissenters," were originally Mus-
lims in Medina who opposed or disagreed with
Muhammad. In other words, they were regarded as
a disloyal faction within the Muslim community.
According to Ibn Ishaqs eighth-century biography
of Muhammad, the Sira , they were mostly from

'Css'3

322 hypocrites

the tribes of Aws and Khazraj, from which many
early Medinan converts had come. They appear to
have had ulterior motives when they first became
Muslims and did not disclose their real beliefs.
They avoided helping Muhammad in his battles
against his Meccan opponents, and some of them
spread a slanderous rumor about his wife Aisha
bint Abi Bakr. They were also accused of being
loyal to his rivals and conspiring with Jewish
tribes in Medina against him.

The Quran mentions hypocrites 32 times, and
one of its chapters even bears the name as its title
(Q 63). It associates them with the worst enemies of
Islam — the disbelievers (sing. KAFIR) and the poly-
theists (sing, mushrik ); all will be punished in hell-
fire (Q 4:140; 33:73). It accuses them of violating
one of the chief moral imperatives of Islam; instead
of commanding what is known to be right and
forbidding what is reprehensible, “they command
what is reprehensible and forbid what is known to
be right” (Q 9:67). In the hadith, the hypocrites are
condemned as liars and promise breakers.

During the later Middle Ages, jurists allowed
for treatment of hypocrites as Muslims under
religious law as long as they kept their true
beliefs to themselves. They were eligible to

marry Muslim women and be buried as Mus-
lims. However, Sunnis and Shiis accused each
other of being hypocrites, reflecting internal
rivalries within the Muslim community as each
group tried to discredit the other. Some modern
Muslim political ideologues have attacked vari-
ous groups and movements in their writings by
calling them hypocrites. Those attacked may be
Muslims who belong to secular or leftist organi-
zations or Jews and other non-Muslim groups.
Islamist and other opposition groups have used
the term to criticize leaders of wealthy Arab oil
countries who do not care for the poor, Muslims
who assist Western governments in their battle
against Islamic radicalism, and Muslims who
refuse to join them in conducting jihad against
the enemies of Islam.

See also Ansar; communism; Emigrants; idola-
try; Islamism; Judaism and Islam; Shiism; Sunnism.

Further reading: Muhammad ibn Ishaq, The Life oj
Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah.
Translated by Alfred Guillaume (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1953), 242-270; W. Montgomery Watt,
Muhammad at Medina (1956. New edition, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1981).

ibada Sec Five Pillars.

Ibadiyya

The Ibadiyya sect of Islam is one of several Mus-
lim Kharijitc movements that declared war against
the wider Muslim community in the seventh and
eighth centuries because of what they considered
to be gross moral shortcomings of its leadership.
It is named after one of the leaders in these move-
ments, Abd Allah ibn Ibad (d. late seventh century
or early eighth century) of Basra, known as “IMAM
of the Muslims" and “imam of the people" in lbadi
sources. The Ibadis also hold the Omani scholar
Jabir ibn Zayd al-Azdi (d. ca. 722) in high esteem.
Ibadis have adopted a moderate stance toward
nonmembers and dissociated themselves from
extremist Kharijis, who called unrepentant Mus-
lims who had committed a grave sin (mushrikun).
On the other hand, they also claim to be distinct
from Sunni and Shii Muslims. The lbadi sect
today has its largest following in the Persian Gulf
country of Oman (about 75 percent of the popu-
lation), but branches also exist in East Africa,
Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. During the Middle
Ages, it also had followers who lived along old
routes of conquest and trade in Iraq, Egypt, the

Sudan, the Hijaz, Yemen and Hadramawt, Iran,
and perhaps India and China.

lbadi doctrine about God is similar to that
of the Mutazila in several respects. They affirm
the crcatedness of the Quran, and they interpret
anthropomorphic references to God in the Quran
symbolically rather than literally. On the other
hand, with respect to the question of free will
versus predeterminism, their belief is like that of
the Sunni Ashari School, with its affirmation of
God's power to determine events while leaving
human beings with the capacity to acquire the
consequences of their actions, whether good or
evil. Ibadis differentiate between inward belief in
God's oneness, outward declaration of this belief,
and implementing this belief in practice. This is
an outcome of their historical experience as an
Islamic sect that witnessed moments when con-
cealment of belief (hitman) was a key to survival
in the face of persecution by enemies. In this
respect, they are like the Shia, who developed
the analogous doctrine of pious dissimulation
(taqiyya). Like the Shia, they have also witnessed
times when they were strong enough to defend
themselves. They have even developed a concept
of martyrdom, which Ibadis call shira (pur-
chase) — the willingness to sacrifice one's life on

323

^ 324 Iblis

behalf of the community in order to gain entrance
into paradise. A minimum force of 40 men is
required before shira is permitted, however.
Generally, in contrast to extremist Kharijites, the
Ibadis do not consider other Muslims to be dis-
believers who must be fought and killed. Rather,
their relations with outsiders range from peaceful
association to neutrality to hostile avoidance. In
their ritual life, Ibadis practice the same duties of
worship as do other Muslims, with some minor
differences.

Ibadis heed the authority of their own imam,
an office of leadership that began in 730. Unlike
the Shia, whose imams are descended from the
household of Muhammad, Ibadi imams attain
office through election by a body of ULAMA and
tribal leaders. The Ibadi imam may also be
deposed for errant behavior. Moreover, in contrast
to the Shia, there can be more than one imam at a
time among the different Ibadi communities, and
there may also be times when there is no official
imam. In Ibadi history, the elective tradition of
leadership has competed with a dynastic one. In
recent times, their imams have been members of
the Al Bu Said dynasty in Oman, which has held
power since the 17th century. However, they now
prefer to call themselves sultans, which empha-
sizes their temporal power. Oman, therefore, is
called a sultanate.

See also FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM; GULF STATES;

Khawarij; Mutazili School; Shiism; Sunnism.

Further reading: Dale F Eickelman, “From Theocracy to
Monarchy: Authority and Legitimacy in Inner Oman."
International Journal of Middle East Studies 17 (1985):

3-24; , "Ibadism and the Sectarian Perspective."

In Oman: Economic , Social, and Strategic Developments,
edited by Briam R. Pridham, 31-50 (London: Croom
Helm, 1987); Valerie J. Hoffman. “The Articulation of
Ibadi Identity in Modern Oman and Zanzibar." Muslim
World 94 (2004): 201-216.

Iblis See Satan.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad (1703-
1791) conservative religious reformer who launched
the Wahhabi movement and helped found the first
Saudi state

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was born in Uyayna, an oasis
town located in the Najd, the central region of
what is now Saudi Arabia. He was raised in a fam-
ily of Hanbali jurists and religious scholars and
demonstrated an early interest in studying the
Quran and other areas of Islamic learning, espe-
cially hadith studies. His father, a Hanbali judge
and teacher of hadith and FIQH, provided him
with his early education in the religious sciences.
Further details about Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s early
career are anecdotal, but it appears that he began
to advocate a strict Islamic reformism while in his
early 20s. He gained a following in his hometown,
but political opposition forced him to go to Mecca
and Medina, where he met and studied with other
reform-minded ULAMA. He became familiar with
the writings of the medieval Hanbali reformer Ibn
Taymiyya and excelled in his knowledge of Han-
bali law. Later he traveled to Basra, a port town
in Iraq, where he encountered Shii doctrines and
practices that met with his disapproval because
they departed from the Islam of the Quran and
the SUNNA.

After Basra, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab moved to
Huraymila, the Najdi town where his father
lived. This was where he wrote The Book of
Unity (Kitab al-tawhid), which expressed many
of his key teachings. Copies of it were circu-
lated throughout the Najd. After his father died
in 1740, his mission became more public. He
promoted the doctrine of tawhid , belief in Gods
absolute uniqueness and rejection of polythe-
ism (shirk), idolatry, and unbelief. His belief
that tawhid included following God’s command-
ments and prohibitions meant that he also
sought to address moral issues in his society
and culture. He favored strict enforcement of
the sharia, including performing prayer, giving
zakat (almsgiving), and enforcing punishments
for adultery. Those who failed to heed his

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Muhammad 325

teachings were seen as unbelievers (kafirs) and
could be subdued through JIHAD. Tribal leaders
and ulama in Huraymila decided that they did
not want Ibn Abd al-Wahhab to undermine their
authority, so they conspired against his life,
forcing him to return to Uyayna, his hometown.
Uthman ibn Hamid ibn Muammar (d. 1749), the
ruler of Uyayna, at first welcomed the reformer,
even arranging for him to marry his aunt. The
situation changed, however, when he cut down
one of the town’s sacred trees, demolished a
shrine belonging to Zayd ibn al-Khattab (one
of the Companions of the Prophet), and, above
all, condemned a woman to death by stoning
after she confessed to adultery. The outcry these
actions stirred caused Uthman to withdraw sup-
port from Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who had to flee
Uyayna in 1744.

He settled in Diriya, about 40 miles from
Uyayna, near Riyadh. The small town was ruled
by the clan of the Saud, led by Muhammad ibn
Saud. That same year, “the two Muhammads”
reached a mutual agreement: Ibn Saud would
protect Ibn Abd al-Wahhab from his enemies and
make him the imam of Diriya, while Ibn Abd al-
Wahhab would collect zakat for the Saudi ruler
and help him extend his control over the Najd
region through his preaching and declaring jihad
against Saudi enemies. These included “infidels”
who did not heed Ibn Abd al-Wahhabs call
(daawa) to accept his version of Islam, as well as
tribes who would not submit to Saudi rule. The
agreement turned out to be more fruitful than the
two might have imagined. From it they were able
to create a confederation of tribal groups, both
settled and nomadic, that provided the basis for a
new state in central Arabia.

When Muhammad ibn Saud died in 1765, Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab continued the alliance with his
son Abd al-Aziz ibn Muhammad (d. 1803). He
maintained his base in Diriya, where he taught
and wrote, seeking to win others to his cause. His
strategy included assigning Wahhabi judges to
the towns and oases that had submitted to Saudi

rule. By the time of his death, Saudi-Wahhabi
rule reached Riyadh (the future Saudi capital)
and the shores of the Persian Gulf. A few years
later, it encompassed most of the Arabian Pen-
insula, including the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's legacy was carried on by
his descendants and disciples. His son Abd Allah
wrote works against Shiism and endorsed the Wah-
habi forays into southern Iraq in early 1801. His
grandson Sulayman (d. 1818) served as judge in
Diriya until executed by Ottoman-Egyptian forces
sent from Egypt into Arabia to destroy the early
Saudi state. Today, his teachings form part of the
official ideology of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
which arose from the ashes of the first Saudi state
under the leadership of King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud
(d. 1953) in the early 20th century. Ibn Abd al-
Wahhab's heirs, known as the Al al-Shaykh (the
family of Shaykh Ibn Abd al-Wahhab), now hold
powerful positions in the Saudi government and
intermarry with members of the Saudi royal family.
His works arc widely available in printed form, and
his ideas hold sway among conservative religious
reformers and radicals in many Sunni countries.
Among those influenced by Ibn Abd al-Wahhabs
teachings is Usama bin Ladin, leader of the al-
Qaida organization responsible for the attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in
2001. Many Muslims, Sunnis, and Shiis alike reject
Ibn Abd al-Wahhabs puritanical understanding of
Islam, nevertheless.

See also bidaa ; renewal and reform move-
ments; Wahhabism.

Further reading: NatanaJ. DcLong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam:
From Revival to Global Jihad (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2004); Madawi al-Rasheed, A History oj
Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), 14— 23; John O. Voll, “Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi
and Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab: An Analysis of
an Intellectual Group in Eighteenth Century Medina.”
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38,
no. 1 (1975): 32-39.

326 Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din (Ibn Arabi)

(1 1 65-1 240) prominent medieval mystic and
visionary who enriched the Sufi tradition of Islam with
his numerous and profound spiritual writings
Ibn al-Arabi, known as “the greatest shaykh," was
born in the town of Murcia in Andalusia (Mus-
lim Spain) at a time of great change in the wider
Mediterranean region. The puritanical Almohad
dynasty was attempting to fend off the Christian
Reconquista from northern Spain, and Muslim
and Christian armies were competing for control
of the Holy Land in the eastern Mediterranean
region. Meanwhile, fearsome Mongol armies were
expanding their conquests in Asia and were on the
brink of invading Iran. It was also the era of many
of the great Sufi masters, including Shihab al-Din
Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi (d. 1234) and Jalal al-
Din Rumi (d. 1273).

Although details about his youth are disputed
and surrounded by pious legend, recent research
has found that Ibn al-Arabi may have come from
a family of soldiers and that he himself had served
the Almohads in this capacity before turning to
the spiritual path. His formal education began
after he moved with his family to Seville, a major
center of learning, where he spent the first part of
his life. He studied the Quran and its commentar-
ies, HADITH, grammar, and FIQH (jurisprudence).
According to his own account, his promise as a
man of mystical leanings seems to have been in
evidence even as a teenager, when he met with
Ibn Rushd (1196-98), the renowned Andalusian
philosopher and jurist. Ibn al-Arabi was also said
to have sought the guidance of known masters
of the spiritual path in southern Spain, including
two women, Shams of Marchena and Fatima of
Cordoba, who proclaimed herself his “spiritual
mother.”

Ibn al-Arabi left home for the first time in the
1190s, when he went to North Africa in search
of spiritual guidance. This launched a career of
traveling that he continued to pursue throughout
his life. In 1202, inspired by a vision, he went to
Mecca for the hajj, stopping in Alexandria and

Cairo en route. While in Mecca, where he had
spiritual inspirations and visions, he began to
write one of his most important works. The Mec-
can Revelations (Al-Futuhat al-Makkiya). About
two years later, he visited Baghdad, then returned
to Egypt, where his teachings were condemned by
the literal-minded ulama. Ibn al-Arabi resumed
his residence in Mecca for a year to continue
his spiritual pursuits, then traveled to Konya,
the capital of a Turkish dynasty, where he was
embraced by Sufi disciples. One of them was Sadr
al-Din al-Qunawi (d. 1274), who became one of
Ibn al-Arabis foremost interpreters and played a
major role in the spread of his teachings.

Ibn al-Arabi traveled widely in Asia Minor,
Iraq, Syria, and Palestine until 1223, when he
finally settled in Damascus. There he finished
The Meccan Revelations, assembled a collection
of poetry, and had a vision of Muhammad in 1229
that he claimed inspired his most influential
work. The Bezels of Wisdom (Fusus al-hikam).
Altogether, he estimated that he had written as
many as 289 books and treatises, most of which
remain untranslated and unpublished. This makes
him the most prolific of all Sufi authors. Ibn al-
Arabi was buried on Mount Qassioun, just out-
side the city limits. Reportedly destroyed by his
enemies, his tomb was rebuilt and embellished
with a MOSQUE and Sufi hospice by the Ottoman
sultan Selim I in 1516-17, when Damascus was
incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.

Ibn al-Arabi became famous only after his
death, when pious biographies about him and
commentaries on his writings gained wide circu-
lation in Islamdom. He was known for the depth
and complexity of his mysticism, ranging from his
understanding of God, the universe, nature, and
humanity to the human soul. His knowledge was
based on a scholarly command of Islamic tradi-
tion (including Sunni fiqh [jurisprudence]), the
teachings of other mystics and visionaries, and the
originality of his own religious experiences and
visions. Despite his knowledge of the Quran and
hadith, some of his ideas, or at least the ways they

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din 327

were construed by others, outraged literal-minded
ulama such as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and even
some leading Sufis. His main insight concerned
the “oneness of being” ( vvahdat al-wujud ): the
belief that all created things were tangible reflec-
tions of God's hidden essence, al-Haqq (truth,
reality), which filled the universe. This idea was
inspired by a HADITH qudsi (holy hadith) favored
by Sufis, wherein God said, “1 was a hidden trea-
sure who wished to be known, so I created the
universe so that I would be known." Ibn al-Arabi,
like mystics before him, understood creation as
a mirror wherein God, the Truth, sought to know
himself. His opponents accused him of panthe-
ism (equating God with creation) — an affront
to the doctrine that God was transcendent and
independent of creation. Ibn al-Arabi recognized,
however, that God was both present in the world
and beyond it.

Moreover, he maintained that Gods desire to
know himself through creation was matched by
man's yearning to know himself through God and
nature. Although man was a servant of God, he
also had been created with Gods spirit. God and
man, therefore, longed to be with each other, a
longing that Ibn al-Arabi and his followers associ-
ated with love (mahabba). A form of this love was
reflected in the mutual attraction between a man
and a woman. Indeed, Ibn al-Arabi even taught
in The Bezels of Wisdom that mans knowledge of
God was completed and perfected in contemplat-
ing how a woman reflected Gods transcendent
reality. He recognized, nonetheless, that humans
often became too attached to worldly concerns
and desires, so they had to strive to sever these
attachments and return to the source. Drawing on
anecdotes from his own life experience, he often
talked about detachment from the world and
seeking God as an ascent or spiritual journey to
the world of the unseen.

In addition to the themes of the unity of being,
desire for reunion, and the spiritual journey, a
fourth major theme found in Ibn al-Arabi s writ-
ings is that of the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kcimil).

He saw the world, both physical and spiritual, as
organized into hierarchies, such as those between
the one and the many, the invisible and the visible,
God and servant, man and woman. As humans
were superior in rank to other creatures in the
visible world, there were qualitative differences
among human beings, too. The highest rank-
ings among them were the prophets and saints,
or “friends of God." Unlike ordinary men, these
were the ones who were most taken with spiritual
ascents and mystical journeys. In this, they, and
Muhammad being the foremost among them,
came closest to the ideal of the Perfect Man, the
image and reflection of God through whom the
known universe came into being.

Although he never founded a Sufi order
(tar/Qa), Ibn al-Arabi's teachings and those of his
disciples were widely embraced by Sufis in Turkey,
Persia, India, and Indonesia. Sufis in Egypt and
Yemen also found them attractive, but to a lesser
extent than elsewhere. Translations and interpreta-
tions of Ibn al-Arabis work by modern scholars in
Europe and the United States have helped spread
his influence in the West. In 1977, the Muhyidin
Ibn Arabi Society was founded in London to pro-
mote better understanding of his work and that of
his disciples. Aside from Ibn Taymiyya, his many
critics have included the historian Ibn Khaldun
(d. 1406), Sufi shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624),
members of the Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia and
beyond, and an array of modern Muslim revivalists
and modernists. Controversy over his teachings
flared again in 1979 when the Egyptian parliament
attempted to ban the republieation of the print edi-
tion of The Meccan Revelations. The attempt failed
due to public outcry.

See also Allah; haq/qa; prophets and prophecy;
Sufism; Wahhabism; walaya.

Further reading: Claude Addas. Quest for the Red Sul-
phur: The Life of Ibn Arabi (Cambridge: Islamic Texts
Society, 1993); William C. Chittick, Ibn Arabi: Heir to
the Prophets (Oxford: Oneworld Publishers, 2005); Th.
Emil Homerin, “Ibn Arabi in the People's Assembly:

' e ^ 328 Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-Hasan Ali

Religion, Press, and Politics in Sadat's Egypt. ' Middle
East Journal 40, no. 3 (Summer. 1986): 462-477; Ibn
al-Arabi, The Bezels of Wisdom. Translated by R. W. J.
Austin (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1980); Annemarie
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 259-286.

Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-Hasan Ali

(unknown-1 022) copyist of the earliest extant
Quran manuscript using all elements of 1 Oth-century
calligraphic reforms

Ibn al-Bawwab worked as librarian for the Shii
Buyid rulers in Shiraz (in Iran) and was later bur-
ied in Baghdad, the city that gave rise to the calli-
graphic khatt (Arabic script) reforms and the girih
mode of geometric ornamentation that in the 11th
century suppressed variant readings of the Quran.
He produced a copy of the Quran in 1000-01 that
is now preserved at the Chester Beatty Library in
Dublin. Ibn al-Bawwab's use of the proportioned
scripts and accompanying geometric designs soon
after their creation indicates that he was loyal to
the Sunni Abbasids (r. 750-1258) as opposed to
the Buyid dynasty (932-1062).

Ibn al-Bawwab occupies a special place among
medieval commentators on khatt as the person
who perfected, through the elegance of his writ-
ing, the proportioned script invented by Abu Ali
Muhammad Ibn Muqla (d. 940). His is the first
surviving copy (and one of the very first such
copies) of a Quran in cursive scripts, or what were
originally considered secular scripts (the six pens
of Ibn Muqla). His signed and dated manuscript
provides a rare instance of a preserved work that
exemplifies major shifts in the processes of copy-
ing and producing these manuscripts.

Earlier, making copies of the Quran was the
domain of specialists who used gold ink on vel-
lum, often employing brushes to fill in the out-
lines of stylized, extended, and difficult to read
letters. Each horizontally disposed page carried a
few lines of about seven to nine words, resulting
in expensive, multivolume products of limited

circulation. In contrast, Ibn al-Bawwab's copy is
a small volume (ca. 13.5 x 17.8 cm) in a vertical
paper format in which the text is written with
pen. The body of the text is entirely vocalized and
written in a clear, rounded naskhi script, while
chapter headings, verse counts, and other statis-
tics arc in thuluth script. The text itself follows
the approved Abbasid version, while the use of
reform scripts and geometric (girih) decoration
in the frontispieces similarly expresses Abbasid
dogma on the accessibility of the divine message
and eternity of universal order.

See also Abbasid Caliphate; arabesque; books
and bookmaking; calligraphy; Fatimid dynasty;
madrasa.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: D. S. Rice, The Unique Quran Manu-
script of Ibn al-Bawwab in the Chester Beatty Library
(Dublin: E. Walker, 1955); Yasser Tabbaa, The Transfor-
mation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2001).

Ibn al-Farid, Abu Hafs Umar (1181-1235)
leading poet of the Arabic language and a widely
recognized Sufi saint of Egypt

Umar Ibn al-Farid was born and lived most of his
life in Egypt. He spent 15 years in Mecca, where
he went after the death of his father. It is not clear
how he supported himself, but he probably made
a living teaching poetry and literature as well as
having a sinecure teaching hadith, in which he
was trained.

Ibn al-Farid's poetry has long been highly
esteemed for its beauty. His poems often bear mul-
tiple meanings and can be read as poems of love
and pleasure or of the mystical path of Sufism.
During his life and in the first generations after
his death, Ibn al-Farid was mostly known as a
mystically inclined poet, and it was very much his
poetry that defined his early reputation. He was an
active member of the literary society of his time,

Ibn al-Farid, Abu Hafs Umar 329

and contemporary poets studied at his feet. He
appears to have avoided close links to rulers and
the perks derived therefrom.

Ibn al-Farid's greatest poetry took themes
present in Arabic poetry and used them in innova-
tive ways that expressed the longing of the mystic
for the divine beloved. Thus, the theme of a lover
drinking in memory of the beloved is trans-
formed, in the justly famous opening line of Ibn
al-Farid’s “Wine Ode" ( Khamriyya ), to an allusion
to the Islamic belief in a primordial covenant
between God and humanity in which humans,
before time began, recognized God's supremacy
and oneness. Thus, he says, “We drank in memory
of the beloved a wine; We were drunk with it
before creation of the vine" (Homerin, Arab Poet
11). Here the beloved is God, while drunken-
ness refers to the spiritual state of intoxication,
a state known and recognized by Sufis. The fact
that this drunkenness occurs before the vine was
even created reinforces the metaphorical nature of
this allusion and draws the listener’s mind to the
primordial covenant. Much of his poetry is of this
sort; in Arabic it is often piercingly beautiful and
deeply resonant.

Within a century of his death, Ibn al-Farids
renown evolved from that of a great poet of mysti-
cal inclination to a great Sufi whose poetry would
guide those on the mystical path of Sufism. Stories
began to circulate about his supernaturally given
knowledge and of his ability to induce mystical
states in those around him. Early on, commenta-
tors began to read Ibn al-Farids verse in light of
the monistic doctrine of Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240), in
which the only reality that beings have lies in their
relationship to the Absolute Being (God). This
doctrine was very controversial, for it appeared
to break, or at least blur, the line of distinction
between God and humanity. Thus, Ibn al-Farid's
poetry, which is not so clear on this point, came
to be lumped with Ibn al-Arabis more explicit
monism. For those who followed Ibn al-Arabi,
of course, this was positive. But Ibn al-Arabi was
always controversial, and thus Ibn al-Farid came

to be associated with and seen through the hotly
contested issue of monism.

In the centuries after his death, Ibn al-Farid
was periodically charged with infidelity for alleg-
edly having espoused this doctrine of monism. But
he was also treated with increasing veneration by
members of the populace and by the elite of the
Mamluk dynasty (1250-1517). Sober scholars, too,
were among his public supporters in later times,
asserting his orthodoxy and refuting his opponents.
Ibn al-Farids grandson was in part responsible lor
transforming him into a saint, especially by pub-
lishing a biography in which miracles were promi-
nently recounted, for miracles were the sine qua
non of a Muslim saint. His burial site in the hills
just outside Cairo was already a recognized place
of pilgrimage by Mamluk times. It continued as a
popular shrine through Ottoman times, declining
as new modern habits began to develop in the 19th
century and as Sufism became increasingly suspect
among reformist and modernizing Muslim intel-
lectuals. While Sufism is still regarded somewhat
warily by many Muslims, it experienced a modest
revival in Egypt in the late 20th century that con-
tinues today. Ibn al-Farid's tomb is now the scene
of one of the major saint festivals (sing, mawud)
on the religious calendar of Cairo. Egypt's most
famous singer of religious songs, Shaykh Yasin al-
Tihami comes to the festival most years, drawing
large and devoted crowds. His songs include those
based on the poetry of Ibn al-Farid, whom locals
refer to as “our master Umar.''

See also Arabic language and literature;
authority; bidaa; Salafism.

John Iskander

Further reading: Th. Emil Homerin, From Arab Poet
to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Farid, His Verse and His Shrine
(Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2001);

, Umar ibn al-Farid: Sufi Verse, Saintly Life (New

York: Paulist Press, 2001); R. A. Nicholson, Studies in
Islamic Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 1921).

330 Ibn Battuta, Abu Abd Allah Muhammad al-Lawati

Ibn Battuta, Abu Abd Allah Muhammad
al-Lawati (1304-1377) famous Muslim world
traveler from Morocco

Ibn Battuta was arguably one of the most well-trav-
eled figures of the medieval period, whose journey
spanned almost 30 years and covered three times
the distance of his more famous European coun-
terpart, Marco Polo (d. 1324). He traveled from
West Africa to China, receiving patronage, hos-
pitality, and occasionally employment from local
rulers and Sufi orders. His extended travels effec-
tively demonstrate the links that tied together pre-
modern Islamicate lands, where a Muslim scholar
could work and wander in many different regions
in a world without firm borders.

Born in Tangiers, Ibn Battuta began his travels
with a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1325. From there,
his wanderlust took him throughout most of
Islamdom, through the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt,
Iraq, Persia, East Africa, Anatolia, the Asian
steppes, Afghanistan, and India. He also ventured
beyond the realms of Islam, exploring Southeast
Asia, China, Spain, and West Africa before ulti-
mately retiring to the court of the Marinid ruler in
Morocco, Abu Inan (r. 1348-58). There the sultan
commissioned the Andalusian scholar Ibn Juzayy
to commit Ibn Battutas story to paper, and the book
was completed by 1357. In spite of certain sections
borrowed from a previous travelers account and
its tendency to exaggerate, this work marks a new
style within the travel literature genre, expanding
on the traditional descriptions of pilgrimage to
include more personal information and a much
larger geographical scope. It is also a testament to
the rich diversity of Islam in this period, with its
verdant blend of Islamic mysticism, religious law,
and local custom. For these reasons, it is consid-
ered a historical treasure trove of information for
Islamicate societies in the 14th century.

Eric Staples

Further reading: Douglas Bullis, “The Longest Hajj:
The Journeys of Ibn Battuta." Saudi Aramco World 51

(July/August 2000): 7-39; Ross Dunn, The Adventures of
Ibn Battuta (1986. Reprint, Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2004); Hamilton A. R. Gibb, The Travels
oj Ibn Battuta 1325-1354. 5 vols. (Cambridge: Hakluyt
Society at the University Press, 1954-2000).

Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad (780-855) leading
Sunni hadith scholar and theologian remembered as
the founder of the Hanbali legal school; a popular
defender of traditional Islamic piety against Muslim
rationalists and the Abbasid Caliphate
Ahmad ibn Hanbal was born in Abbasid Baghdad
and lived there most of his life. His family's ances-
tors had participated in the Arab conquests of Iraq
and northeastern Iran, where his grandfather had
served as a governor and his father as a soldier.
He studied Arabic and Islamic law (f/QH), but
his real passion was for the hadith. Beginning in
795, when he was 14 years old, Ibn Hanbal went
to study hadith with scholars in Kufa and Basra
(leading Iraqi centers of learning). He also stud-
ied in Yemen, Syria, Medina, and Mecca. A pious
man, he had made the HAJJ to Mecca five times
before he turned 33, and he performed several
religious retreats in Medina. Because of his exper-
tise in the area of hadith studies, he was one of the
leading People of Hadith, a group of traditional-
ist religious scholars who opposed the People of
Opinion (ray), religious scholars who preferred
individually reasoned legal thinking over strict
adherence to precedents expressed in the hadith.

Ibn Hanbal's most celebrated work was the
Musnad , a multivolume collection of an estimated
27,000 hadith that has been ranked among the six
most authoritative Sunni books of hadith. Unlike
other hadith collections, which were organized
by subject, the Musnad was organized according
to the names of the earliest known transmitters
of each hadith. It began with hadith attributed to
the first four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman,
and Ali), then other leading Companions of the
Prophet, the Ansar, Meccans, Medinans, people
of Kufa and Basra, Syrians, and female authori-

Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Said 331

ties such as Aisha and Hafsa (two of Muhammad's
wives). Ibn Hanbal has also been credited for
having written on theological, legal, and ethical
topics.

In 833, the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (r.
813-833) attempted to impose the theological
doctrines of the rationalist Mutazili School and
ran into the staunch opposition of Muslim tradi-
tionalists, the foremost of whom was Ibn Hanbal.
The hadith scholar objected to the Mutazili view
that the Quran was created, holding instead to
the more popular view that it was uncreated and
eternal, thereby affirming its sacred character.
Al-Mamun died, but the Abbasid “inquisition”
( mihna ) was continued by his successors, al-
Mutasim (r. 833-842) and al-Wathiq (r. 842-
847). Ibn Hanbal was imprisoned for two years,
and, after being beaten, he was allowed to go
home, where he remained in retirement until
847. At the end of the Abbasid persecutions, he
resumed his teaching and was even entertained
as a guest of the new caliph, al-Mutawakkil (r.
847-861). When he died of an illness in 855, it
was reported that thousands attended his funeral.
His tomb in Baghdad’s Martyrs Cemetery became
one of the city's most popular shrines. His teach-
ings were preserved and transmitted by his circle
of disciples, including his sons, Salih (d. ca. 880)
and Abd Allah (d. 828).

Ibn Hanbal had a profound effect on the his-
tory of Islam. His legacy is embodied not only in
the Musnad and the legal school that bears his
name, but also by the generations of Sunni ulama
who have shaped Islamic tradition through the
centuries. He helped make hadith the centerpiece
of Islamic law and theology and strengthened
the religious AUTHORITY of the ulama against state
interference.

See also Allah; Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad; Sunnism; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Michael Cooperson. Classical Ara-
bic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of
al-Mamun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2000); Nimrod Hurvitz, The Formation of Hanbalism:
Piety into Power (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002).

Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Said ( 994 -

1 064) leading Andalusian religious scholar and poet
Ibn Hazm was born in Cordoba, the capital of
Andalusia. He lived in a politically turbulent
time when the Umayyad Caliphate was collaps-
ing. Little is known of his family's background
except that they may have been Iberian Chris-
tians who converted to Islam. His father served
the Umayyad court, and he himself relied on
their patronage. Ibn Hazm spent his youth in the
harem, where he gained intimate knowledge of life
among the Andalusian elite and the roles women
played in society. He received formal education
in Arabic language arts, religious sciences, phi-
losophy, and history. His gifts placed him in the
circle of the best intellects of his time. He had a
critical temperament and was a nonconformist in
many respects. For example, instead of following
the Maliki Legal School, the prevailing one in
Andalusia, Ibn Hazm was the leading advocate
of the Zahiri Legal School, which upheld literal
interpretation of the Quran and hadith and
opposed subjective opinion. He was imprisoned
more than once for the political intrigues in which
he became implicated. A prolific writer, his biog-
raphers credit him with some 400 books on many
different topics. Only a few dozen of these have
survived. He spent his last years in exile from his
beloved Cordoba.

One of Ibn Hazms most famous books was
Kitab al-fisal fi al-milal wa'l-ahwa wa’l-nihal (The
book of distinguishing between religions , heresies,
and sects), a comparative look at religions and
philosophical schools from the point of view of a
believing Muslim intellectual. It provided a ratio-
nal defense of key tenets of Islamic belief against
the truth claims of the Muslim philosophers,
challenged Jewish legal doctrines, and refuted
Christian teachings about the authenticity of the
Gospels and the divinity of Jesus. It also levied

332 Ibn Idris, Ahmad

cutting criticisms against Shiism and other Islamic
sects and theological schools. Scholars credit Ibn
Hazm with being informed about the doctrines
he attacked, but they also recognize that he was
adamant about the ultimate truth of his own
beliefs, particularly the absolute unity of God and
the authenticity of the Quran as the word of God.
Another of his famous works is Tawq al-hamamci
(Neck-ring of the dove), a fascinating essay on
Andalusian Arab understandings of love, enriched
by colorful anecdotes drawn from his personal
experiences and those of his acquaintances. It
began with discussions of how couples fall in
love and communicate with each other and then
their unions, separations, and betrayals. The reli-
gious message Ibn Hazm sought to convey to his
readers in this work was that people must try to
overcome the carnal appetites of their bodies and
follow God-given reason and religious law to win
salvation.

See also adab; Arabic language and litera-
ture; THEOLOGY.

Further reading: Ghulam Haider Aasi, Muslim Under-
standing of Other Religions: A Study of Ibn Hazms Kitab
al-fasl Ji al-milal wa al-ahwa \va al-nihal (Islamabad:
International Institute of Islamic Thought and Islamic
Research, 1999); Lois A. Giffen, "Ibn Hazm and the
Tawq al-hamamci In The Legacy of Muslim Spain, edited
by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, 420-442 (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1994); Maria Rosa Mcnocal, The Ornament of the World:
How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of
Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Boston: Little Brown &
Co., 2002).

Ibn Idris, Ahmad (ca. 1750-1837) 19th-

century reformist Sufi leader

Ahmad ibn Idris was an influential Sufi teacher
in the 19th century. Born in Morocco, Ibn Idris
received a religious education at the Qarawiyyin
mosque in Fez and established himself as an
important Sufi teacher there. In 1798, he left
Morocco and spent the remainder of his life in the

Hijaz (western Arabia), Upper Egypt, and Yemen,
where he died at the advanced age of 87.

Ibn Idris focused his work on preaching and
teaching. He was an excellent organizer and
trainer of disciples, but he did not leave a coher-
ent corpus of writings. Apart from prayers, lita-
nies, and personal letters, most of what remains
are summaries of his teachings assembled by
his disciples. Profoundly mystical yet humble,
Ibn Idris influenced the lives of many Sufis who
passed through Arabia during nearly 40 years in
the region. He is well known for his defense of the
Sufi way in a debate with two Wahhabi scholars
near the end of his life. His legacy was to point
Sufi movements toward a moderate path and away
from the controversial practices and doctrines that
earned the criticism of litcralist groups such as the
Wahhabis. Although Ibn Idris did not found his
own tariqa, his disciples established influential
Sufi orders that have spread his teachings beyond
Africa to the Middle East, eastern Europe, and
Southeast Asia. The term Idrisiyya refers both to
his school of thought and to the Sufi order that
looks to him as its founder.

See also renewal and reform movements;
Sufism; Wahhabism.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: R. S. O'Fahey, Enigmatic Saint: Ahmed
Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition (Evanston, 111.: North-
western University Press, 1990); , "The writings

by, attributed to, or on Ahmad Ibn Idris." Bibliotheca
Orientalis 43, nos. 5/6 (1986): 660-669; John O. Voll,
"Two Biographies of Ahmad Ibn Idris al-Fasi (1769-
1837)." International Journal of African Historical Studies
6 (1973): 633-645.

Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad (704-767) author of
the leading biography of Muhammad
Details about the early years of Ibn Ishaqs life are
lacking, other than that he was born in Medina
to an Arab family and that his grandfather had
converted to Islam after having been taken cap-

Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din Ismail ibn Umar 333

tive in southern Iraq. His father and uncle were
known as early collectors of Islamic oral tradi-
tion. As an adult, Ibn Ishaq lived both in Medina
and Egypt, becoming famous for his mastery of
hadith and accounts of Muhammad's battles and
raids ( maghazi )• He returned to Medina where
Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), the eponymous founder
of the Maliki Legal School, became his enemy,
possibly because of Ibn Ishaq’s Shii sympathies,
his use of HADITH transmitted by Jewish converts,
or his questioning of Maliks authority as a hadith
expert. Another respected scholar in Medina,
perhaps defending his wife's reputation, accused
Ibn Ishaq of citing her falsely as one of his hadith
informants. In this stormy climate, he moved on
to Baghdad, the new capital of the Abbasid Caliph-
ate, where he became a tutor to the son of the
caliph al-Mansur (r. 754-775).

While in Baghdad, Ibn Ishaq wrote his famous
BIOGRAPHY of MUHAMMAD, known as Sirat rasul
Allah (The biography of God's prophet), or simply
Al-Sira (The biography). It appears to have been
part of a larger project on the history of the world
that was intended for the edification of the caliph's
son. The larger work, known as The Book of the
Beginning (Kitab al-Mubtada), included accounts
about the creation of the world and the lives of
the pre-Islamic prophets and culminated with the
biography of Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq may also have
wanted to add a history of the caliphate up to his
own time, but this part of the project was never
completed. The Sira emphasized the campaigns
Muhammad conducted against his opponents dur-
ing the Medina phase of his career (622-632),
but it also provided valuable information on
Muhammad's ancestry, the history of Mecca before
Islam, his life before the Hijra of 622, his encoun-
ters with pagan Arabs, Jews, and Christians, the
occasions when the Quran was revealed, and the
conversion stories of his early followers. The Sira
was later edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 833), who
removed material he believed to be objectionable
to the emerging Sunni consensus, but some of
the censored material can be gathered from later

sources. There w r as no other early source for the
life of Muhammad like Ibn Ishaq's Sira, and all
other biographies of the Prophet have had to rely
on it, including biographies written by modern
scholars.

Ibn Ishaq attracted many students of early
Islamic biography and history during his years in
Baghdad. They transmitted his work to later gen-
erations after his death in 767.

Sec also Arabic language and literature.

Further reading: Muhammad ibn Ishaq, The Life of
Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaqs Sirat Rasul
Allah. Translated by Alfred Guillaume (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1955); Gordon Darnell Newby, The
Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earli-
est Biography of Muhammad (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1989).

Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din Ismail ibn Umar

(1301-1373) leading Syrian historian, Quran
commentator, and scholar of hadith
Ibn Kathir was born in Busra, Syria, and edu-
cated in the Mamluk madrasas of Damascus.
One of his most prominent teachers was Taqi
al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), the fore-
most Hanbali jurist of the Middle Ages, but he
considered himself a follower of the Shafii Legal
School. Ibn Kathir became one of a circle of
leading ULAMA who were consulted by Mamluk
rulers and held several minor appointments
at local mosques and madrasas. He is famous
among Muslims around the world today for his
tafsir (Quran commentary), which uses hadith
to illuminate meanings of the scripture. He
also authored a compendium of hadith, which
assembled the six major Sunni collections plus
additional hadith in one work. Among scholars
of medieval Islam, his book on Islamic history,
Al-Bidaya wa'I-Nihaya (The beginning and the
end) is held in high esteem. It is 14 volumes
long in its modern print edition and provides
a lengthy biography of Muhammad, a history of

‘ CssS3 334 Ibn Khaldun, Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad

the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, an account
of the Mongol invasions, and a history of
Damascus. Ibn Kathir became blind at the end of
his life and was buried in the Sufiyya Cemetery
near the grave of his teacher Ibn Taymiyya.

Further reading: Ibn Kathir, The Life of the Prophet
Muhammad. 4 vols. Translated by Trevor Lc Gassick

(London: Garnett Publishing, 1998-2000); ,

Tafsir Ibn Kathir 10 vols., abridged. English translation
by Safiur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri (Riyadh, Saudi Ara-
bia: Dar-es-Salam Publications, 2000).

Ibn Khaldun, Abd al-Rahman ibn
Muhammad (1332-1406) medieval scholar
famed for his philosophy of history and insights into
the rise and fall of civilizations

Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis to a family of court
officials and religious scholars that had emigrated
from Seville in Islamicate Spain (Andalusia) dur-
ing the 13th century. His father, Muhammad, was
a jurist who saw to it that his son acquired a thor-
ough education in the traditional religious sci-
ences, including Quran studies, hadith, and fiqh
(jurisprudence) — especially that of the MALIKI
Legal School. This was a time when intellectual
and cultural life in Tunis prospered under the
rule of the Marinids, a Berber dynasty that ruled
parts of North Africa and Andalusia from 1196
to 1464. After the Black Death took the lives of
both his parents in 1348-49, Ibn Khaldun left
to work in the Marinid court in Fez. He became
deeply involved in political affairs there but con-
tinued to further his formal education as well. In
1362, he joined the court of the Nasirid dynasty
(1212-1492) in Granada, Spain, and led a peace
delegation to the Christian ruler Pedro the Cruel
in Seville in 1364. At this time in his career, his
chief mentor, Ibn al-Khatib (d. 1374), described
him as a man who “commands respect, is able
. . . unruly, strong-willed, and full of ambitions
for climbing to the highest position of leadership
(Mahdi, 40).

Leaving Andalusia to further enhance his
career, Ibn Khaldun traveled to Algeria, where he
was briefly employed as an adviser to the Hafsid
ruler there and as a preacher and jurist. However,
these were turbulent times in the Maghrib (North
Africa), and after repeated attempts to secure
long-term employment, he retired to a desert oasis
near Oran in 1374, where he and his family lived
under the protection of a friendly Arab desert
tribe. Renouncing a career in politics, he dedi-
cated himself to a scholars life and began to write
the famous introduction, known as the “Muqad-
dima," to his universal history of the Arabs and
Berbers ( Kitab al-Ibar). In 1378, Ibn Khaldun
returned to his native Tunis, but, in 1382, he went
to Cairo, Egypt, where his scholarly reputation
earned him several appointments as a teacher of
Maliki law and as the city's chief Maliki jurist.
In his autobiography, he called his new home
“the metropolis of the world . . . illuminated by
the moons and stars of its learned men.” He was
to spend the remaining years of his life there,
completing and revising his multivolumc history
(seven volumes long in its Arabic printed edition)
and offering advice to the Mamluk rulers of Egypt
and his former royal patrons in Tunis. When the
Mongol armies of Tamerlane (d. 1405) invaded
Syria in 1400, Ibn Khaldun reluctantly accom-
panied the Mamluk army to Damascus to oppose
the invasion. During the siege, he was invited to
a lengthy audience with the Mongol conqueror.
According to the scholars account, the two men
discussed their respective views of history and the
rise and fall of civilizations for 35 days, and Ibn
Khaldun provided Tamerlane with information
about the peoples and lands of Egypt and North
Africa. Tamerlane's forces plundered Damascus,
but Ibn Khaldun negotiated his own freedom and
returned to Cairo, where he held several posts as a
Maliki judge and scholar. He also finished writing
his autobiography and made the final revisions in
his universal history before his death in 1406.

The Muqaddima is encyclopedic in scope; it
expresses Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history and

Ibn Muqla, Abu Ali Muhammad 335

brilliant understanding of society and religion. It is
divided into a preface and six substantive chapters.
The chapters address the following subjects: society
and nature, tribal society, politics and government,
urban society, economics, and religious knowledge
and the sciences. In these chapters, he proposes
what he calls a “new science" of history and civili-
zation. Ibn Khaldun argues that at the beginning of
human culture, kin-based groups banded together
to overcome the forces of nature, with the most
successful ones developing a strong feeling of
group solidarity, which he called asabiyya. Compe-
tition and conflict between groups in time ended
with some groups becoming more powerful than
others, forming political states. Eventually this led
to the establishment of the institutions of govern-
ment, the building of great cities and civilizations,
and the development of learning. Ibn Khaldun
acknowledges that the laws established to restrain
human violence and ensure justice could be either
natural (man-made) or God-given. Revealed law,
he argues, especially in a religion such as Islam, not
only contributes to worldly security but also offers
salvation in the afterlife. Drawing on his own life
experience and knowledge of history, however,
Ibn Khaldun also recognizes that ruling dynasties,
cities, and civilizations fall and that morality and
justice become corrupted. Indeed, he believes that
civilizations possess the seeds of their own destruc-
tion, for with prosperity and luxury, the bonds of
social solidarity weaken, leaving them vulnerable
to collapse from within and invasion from without.
Tribal groups possessing a more profound degree of
group solidarity then arise and form new states and
civilizations, thus inaugurating another phase in
the cycle of history. Ibn Khaldun sought to convey
to the rulers under whom he served the secrets of
history that, if mastered, would assure long-lasting
peace and security for their subjects and preserve
the civilizational heritage they enjoyed.

Ibn Khalduns philosophy of history had a
mixed reception in his own time and was favor-
ably viewed by reform-minded Ottoman histo-
rians in the 18th century. However, it has been

most deeply appreciated by modern scholars in
the West and in Muslim countries; many see it as
an exemplary attempt to explain history, society,
and religion in terms of human reason.

Further reading: Frances Carney Gics, "The Man Who
Met Tamerlane. Saudi Aramco World 29 (September/
October 1978): 14-21; Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddiniah:
An Introduction to History. Translated by Franz Rosen-
thal. Edited and abridged by N. ). Dawood (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004); Muhsin Mahdi,
Ibn Khalduns Philosophy of History (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1964).

Ibn Muqla, Abu Ali Muhammad (886-

940) chief minister of three Abbasids and inventor of
the proportioned scripts used in Arabic calligraphy
Born in Baghdad at the height of its power and influ-
ence, Ibn Muqla was responsible for inventing or
implementing a number of administrative reforms.
These included the regularization of scripts neces-
sary for documentation and for copying historical
and other cultural tracts and that were later used
for copying the Quran. Recent research shows that
these reforms disrupted preexisting systems and
eliminated the class of professional Quran copyists.
These findings revise Orientalist views of Arabic
calligraphy as an evolutionary process and as an
Islamic art form that merely compensated for the
supposed absence of figural representation.

Ibn Muqlas writing system, known as al-khatt
al-mansub , enabled the letters of any given script to
be in proportion to one another. It required a well
cut pen ( qalam ) with a deep slit for holding ink. The
nib produced a rhombus-shaped dot that became
the basic unit of a geometric letter design system.
Writing an alif (the long, vertical Arabic A) required
a number of dots one on top of the other, resulting
in the maximum height of any other letter. The alif
acted as control: its total height was the diameter
of a circle that enclosed all letters of a particular
script. Accordingly, letters were in proportion to
one another inasmuch as they were proportional

336 Ibn Rushd, Muhammad

to the circle produced by the alif. The proportions
held regardless of letter size, which resulted from
the actual size of the nib. Ibn Muqla applied this
system to six modes of writing, producing the six
pens (al-aqlam al-sitta) of what is known as Arabic
calligraphy or, more accurately, khatt.

The reform produced a new aesthetic canon;
later medieval scribes and connoisseurs judged
the beauty of writing according to the degree of
clarity and harmony produced through the new
system. Although the reforms may have been orig-
inally intended for secular texts, their adoption
(or copying scripture was complete within two
generations. The change in the visual appearance
of the holy text reflected controversies over the
nature of the Quran and its message, which the
Abbasids considered eternal and accessible to all.
The clarity and legibility of proportioned writing
mirrored this ideological position and combated
proponents of an esoteric message accessible only
to a chosen elite.

Ibn Muqla, too, fell victim to the politics of
the Abbasid court at the end of his life. He was
imprisoned, suffered the amputation of his right
hand, and died in disgrace.

Sec also alphabet; art; Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-
Hasan Ali; Orientalism.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: Yasin Safadi. Islamic Calligraphy (Boul-
der, Colo.: Shambhala Publications, 1978); Yasser Tab-
baa, The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni
Revival (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001).

Ibn Rushd, Muhammad (also known
in the West by his Latinized name,

Averroes) (11 26-1 1 98) a leading philosopher in
the Middle Ages famed for his learned commentaries
on Aristotle and his refutation of Muslim theological
teachings

Ibn Rushd was born in Cordoba, one of the
major centers of Islamicate culture and learning

in Andalusia. At that time, it was ruled by the
ALMOHAD DYNASTY of North Africa, known for its
puritanical adherence to Islamic law and interest
in philosophy. Both his grandfather and father had
been leading judges of the Maliki Legal School,
and as a youth he also studied Maliki law, theol-
ogy, medicine, mathematics, and astronomy. It is
not known exactly when he took up the study
of philosophy, but it may have been through his
teacher of medicine and mathematics, Abu Jaafar
ibn Harun. (In medieval Islam, medicine, math-
ematics, and philosophy were seen as related areas
of learning.)

At the age of 27, Ibn Rushd was retained by
the Almohad court in Marrakesh, the Almohad
capital in what is now Morocco, as an astrono-
mer. Around 1 169, the prominent court physician
and philosopher Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185) introduced
him to the caliph Abu Yaaqub Yusuf (r. 1 163-84),
who engaged him in a discussion about whether
heaven was created or eternal, a controversial
question because it pitted conventional Muslim
theological doctrine about God's unique eternity
against the philosophical view that the world
was eternal. Ibn Rushd, reportedly a modest and
discreet man, made a favorable impression on
the caliph with his answers, and this helped him
obtain coveted appointments as a judge in Seville
and Cordoba and as successor to Ibn Tufayl as
court physician in 1182. He began to write the
philosophical works and commentaries during
this time, prompted, perhaps, by the caliphs com-
plaint that the works of Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.),
the ancient Greek philosopher, were difficult to
understand. Ibn Rushd enjoyed the favor of Abu
Yaaqub Yusufs successor, Yaaqub al-Mansur (r.
1184-99), until 1195, when he was banished to
Lucena, a small town south of Cordoba. This may
have been for political reasons, but it led to an
order by Cordoba's city council to have his philo-
sophical works burned because they were thought
to undermine the faith. He was restored to favor a
few years later but died shortly thereafter in 1198.
Ibn Rushd was buried in Marrakesh, but his body

Ibn Rushd, Muhammad 337

Statue commemorating Ibn Rushd in Cordoba,
Spain (Federico R. Campo)

was later transferred to Cordoba, his hometown,
for burial.

Ibn Rushd is estimated to have written more
than 100 books and treatises in his lifetime. He
is best known for his commentaries on Aristotle,
whose works had been translated into Arabic
in Syria during the eighth century. Ibn Rushds
commentaries were written in Arabic, translated
into Hebrew and Latin, and then transmitted to
Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Indeed,
it was mainly through Ibn Rushds commentar-
ies that European intellectuals and theologians
(known as the Scholastics) discovered Aristotle.
Even though it met with strong opposition from
the Catholic Church, his work contributed signifi-
cantly to the advancement of the Western philo-

sophical tradition during the High Middle Ages.
Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), the foremost Catholic
theologian of the time, consulted and contended
with Ibn Rushds interpretation of Aristotle in
composing his major theological works, Summa
Theologica and Summa contra Gentiles.

Another one of Ibn Rushds major works was
a treatise that argued against the views of Abu
Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), the famous Bagh-
dadi scholar who adhered to the Ashari School of
Sunni theology and was held in high esteem by the
Almohads. In a book titled The Incoherence of the
Philosophers ( Tahafut al-falasifa ), al-Ghazali had
opposed the Neoplatonist philosophical views of
al-Farabi (d. 950), Ibn Sina (d. 1037), and others
who argued that the world was eternal, that God
had no knowledge of the particulars of his cre-
ation, and who denied a bodily resurrection and
final judgment. Instead, al-Ghazali maintained
that philosophy and religion were incompatible
and that philosophers should be condemned as
infidels. Ibn Rushd, defending Aristotle and the
Islamic philosophical tradition, entitled his refu-
tation of al-Ghazali The Incoherence of the Incoher-
ence ( Tahafut al-tahafut ) and asserted that reason
and revelation were indeed compatible, it was
only that they differed in language and interpre-
tation. Some of those who read his work alleged
that he held to a belief in "two truths" — that there
was one truth that could be known by human
reason and another that could be known by rev-
elation from God. A fuller reading of Ibn Rushd,
however, does not support this claim. In addi-
tion to his philosophical and theological works,
he also wrote books on Islamic law, politics, and
astronomy. His medical encyclopedia, The Book of
Generalities (Kitab al-kulliyat), dealt with a variety
of topics, including anatomy, disease, diet, and
healing. It was translated into Latin and read by
medical students in medieval Europe.

The persecution and condemnation Ibn Rushd
suffered in his last years, combined with the politi-
cal and cultural decline of Islamicate Spain, damp-
ened the impact of his work in Islamicate lands.

338 Ibn Saud

Aside from his sons, he had few followers until
the modern period. In the 20th century, Arabic
publishers in Beirut and Cairo issued print edi-
tions of several of his books on law, theology, and
medicine. This was a result of renewed interest in
his thought that came with increased interaction
with Europe and a movement to reform Islam in
conformity with modern notions of rationality. A
revived interest in Ibn Rushd is also reflected in
the feature film Destiny (al-Masir, 1997), directed
by the Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine (b.
1926). The film depicts Ibn Rushd as a respected
scholar and family man contending with political
authoritarianism and religious fanaticism, a reality
faced by many in the world today.

Further reading: lysa A. Bello, The Medieval Islamic
Controversy between Philosophy and Theology: Ijma and
Tawil in the Conflict between al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989); Oliver Lcaman, Averroes
and His Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988); Caroline Stone, “Doctor, Philosopher, Renais-
sance Man." Saudi Aramco World 54 (May/June 2003):
8-15.

Ibn Saud See Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud.

Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn (Latin as
Avicenna) (979-1037) gifted Persian philosopher
and physician whose writings were widely studied in
the Middle East and Europe

More is known about Ibn Sinas early life than
about most other medieval Muslim scholars
because he wrote an autobiography about his
youth, supplemented with details about his adult
career contributed by later Muslim biographers.
He was born in a village near Bukhara (now in
Uzbekistan) and educated under the supervision
of his father, a learned man with Ismaili affilia-
tions. Ibn Sina is thought to have had a remark-
able memory. He claims that by the age of 10 he
had memorized the Quran and large amounts of

Arabic poetry. Soon thereafter, he studied several
highly complex subjects, including logic, Islamic
law (FtQH), and the metaphysics of Aristotle, as
explained by the Turkish philosopher al-Farabi
(d. 950). He also studied Neoplatonic philosophy,
which was held in high esteem by Ismaili schol-
ars such as the Brethren of Purity. Because he
was allowed free access to the royal library of the
Samanid dynasty (819-999), he was able to edu-
cate himself so well that he boasted of becoming a
teacher to the tutors hired by his father to educate
him. By the time he had turned 21, he had already
become famous for his medical knowledge and
healing skills and had written his first book on
philosophy.

When his father died in 1002, Ibn Sina left
Bukhara and traveled westward, finding tempo-
rary employment in the courts of several local
rulers. He continued to teach and write while
serving in government posts. Around 1020, Ibn
Sina became a court physician to the Shii ruler
Shams al-Dawla (r. 997-1021) in Hamadan in
western Iran. He was imprisoned in 1022 as
a result of political intrigues but managed to
escape to Isfahan in the south, where he was pro-
tected by Ala al-Dawla Muhammad (r. 1008-41),
the local ruler. Isfahan was his home for 15
years, where he continued his scholarly activi-
ties and completed writing his major works. He
died in the company of Ala al-Dawla while on a
military expedition. He was buried in Hamadan,
where a monumental tomb memorializes his
contributions to Islamic philosophy, medicine,
and science.

Estimates concerning the number of books
and treatises he wrote range from 100 to 250.
Most of them were written in Arabic, even though
his native language was Persian. Among the most
exhaustive of his works on philosophical and reli-
gious subjects was Kitab al-shifa ( The Book of Heal-
ing). It dealt with four chief topics: logic, physics,
mathematics, and metaphysics. The chapters on
physics included substantial discussion about
the nature of the human soul and its relation to

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad 339

mind and body. He argued that all human souls
were immortal and thus not subject to a bodily
resurrection. In his discussion of metaphysics, he
attempted to show that all beings had their origin
in what he called the Necessary Existent, the first
cause, or God. Ibn Sina's God represented the
highest beauty, lacking any defect; he was both
the essential lover and the beloved. Inspired by
Neoplatonism, Ibn Sina supported the idea that
the rest of creation flowed from God in waves,
or emanations. Such ideas were highly offensive
to literally minded Muslims. He developed these
ideas further in a group of writings concerned
with mysticism and “Oriental Wisdom." Ibn Sina
also wrote an encyclopedic book on the healing
arts titled The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fi
al-tihb ), which drew extensively on Greek and
Arab medical literature and even some of his own
personal experience. It included his recommenda-
tions on caring for infants, raising children, and
EDUCATION.

Ibn Sina's genius inspired and challenged phi-
losophers, men of religion, mystics, physicians,
and scientists in the Middle East and Europe for
centuries after his death. In Islamicatc lands, these
included luminaries such as al-Ghazali (d. 1111),
Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240), Abu
Hafs al-Suhrawardi (d. 1294), and Mulla Sadra
(d. 1640). Latin translations of The Book of Heal-
ing and The Canon oj Medicine were read in Euro-
pean universities as early as the 12th century and
were studied there for centuries. The Catholic
theologian Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), like his
counterparts in the east, also benefited from Ibn
Sinas learning while arguing against some of his
ideas about God, the soul, and creation. Even
today Ibn Sina's work is being read in many cen-
ters of learning around the world. In 1979-80, the
1,000-year anniversary of his birth was celebrated
in many countries. Hospitals in the Middle East
and South Asia bear his name, including one in
Baghdad. Iranians regard him as a national hero.
The United Nations Educational and Social Orga-
nization (UNESCO) established a prize for groups

and individuals in the fields of ethics and science
in his honor in 2004.

Further reading: William Goldman, The Life of Ibn Sina:
A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (Albany:
Stale University of New York Press, 1974); Dimitri
Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduc-
tion to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1988); Shams Inati, “Ibn Sina.” In History
of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
and Oliver Leaman, 231-246 (London: Routledge,
1996); David Tschanz, “The Arab Roots of European
Medicine.” Saudi Aramco World 48 (May/June 1997):
20-31.

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad (Ibn
Taymiya, Ibn Taimiya) (1263-1328)
prominent Hanbali jurist and theologian who inspired
Islamic revivalist movements, especially Wahhabism
Ibn Taymiyya was born in the ancient city of
llarran in what is now southeastern Turkey. He
came from a family of scholars affiliated with the
Hanbali Legal School. When he was only six
years old, his family fled to Damascus in order
to escape the Mongols who had invaded the
Middle East from Central Asia, plundering cities
and killing many in their path. He obtained his
education at a Hanbali madrasa directed by his
father.

At the age of 21, Ibn Taymiyya succeeded his
father as director and began to teach and write
books. In his work, he advocated a literal inter-
pretation of the Quran and hadith and called on
Muslims to follow the example set by the Com-
panions of the Prophet, the salaf. He condemned
many of the teachings of Muslim philosophers,
theologians, and Shiis. He was also outraged by
popular belief in saints and visiting saints' tombs.
Arguing that this was not condoned by the early
Muslim community, he ruled that it was bidaa
(unorthodox innovation) and therefore forbid-
den. He did not reject Sufi piety and asceticism,
however, as long as God remained the focus of

' Css ^ 340 Ibn Tumart, Muhammad

worship. He is reported to have been a member
of the Qadiri Order of Sufis. Ibn Taymiyya also
opposed traditionalist approaches to the under-
standing of the sharia and favored the use of
ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) by qualified
jurists.

When the Mongols invaded Syria in 1300, he
was among those calling for jihad against them
and ruled that even though they had recently
converted to Islam, they should be considered
unbelievers. He went to Egypt to win support
to this cause and became embroiled in religio-
political disputes there. Ibn Taymiyyas enemies
accused him of anthropomorphism, a view that
was objectionable to the teachings of the Ashari
School of Islamic theology, and he was impris-
oned for more than a year in 1306. Upon release,
he condemned popular Sufi practices and the
influence of Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240), earning him
the enmity of leading Sufi shaykhs in Egypt and
another prison sentence. He was released by the
Egyptian sultan in 1310.

The sultan allowed Ibn Taymiyya to return to
Damascus in 1313, where he worked as a teacher
and jurist. He had supporters among the power-
ful, but his outspokenness and nonconformity
to traditional Sunni doctrine and Sufi ideals and
practices continued to draw the wrath of the reli-
gious and political authorities in Syria and Egypt.
He was arrested and released several more times,
although he was usually allowed to continue
writing fatwas (advisory opinions in matters of
law) and defenses of his ideas while in prison.
Despite the controversy that surrounded him, Ibn
Taymiyyas influence reached well beyond Hanbali
circles to members of other Sunni legal schools
and Sufi groups. Among his foremost students
were Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), a leading medieval his-
torian and Quran commentator, and Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziya (d. 1350), a prominent Hanbali jurist
and theologian who helped spread his teachers
influence after his death in 1328. Ibn Taymiyya
died a prisoner in the citadel of Damascus and was
buried in the city's Sufi cemetery.

Hanbali influence subsequently declined in
Syria and Egypt, especially after the region fell
under Ottoman control in the 16th century. In the
18th century, Ibn Taymiyyas teachings influenced
the revivalist movement led by Muhammad ibn
Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792) in the Arabian Pen-
insula. His books are today widely read in Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, South Asia, and
Southeast Asia. In addition to inspiring religious
revivalists and reformers, some of his rulings
have also been used to justify acts of violence
committed by followers of radical Islamic groups.
One of these was the Jihad Group responsible for
the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar
al-Sadat (d. 1981).

See also saint; Salafism; Sufism; Wahhabism.

Further reading: George Makdisi, “Ibn Taimiya: A
Sufi of the Qadiriya Order." American Journal of Arabic
Studies 1 (1974): 118-129; Abd al-Hakim ibn Ibrahim
Matroudi, The Hanbali School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah:
Conflict or Conciliation (London: Routlcdge, 2006);
Muhammad Umar Mcmon, Ibn Taymiya's Struggle
against Popular Religion (The Hague: Mouton, 1976).

Ibn Tumart, Muhammad (ca. 1078-
1130) 1 2th-century religious reformer, self-
proclaimed mahdi (messianic figure), and founder of
the North African Almohad dynasty
Born in the Anti-Atlas Mountains in southern
Morocco, Ibn Tumart left for an extended trip to
the Muslim East in 1106. While there he studied
f/qh (Islamic jurisprudence) and became con-
vinced that the dominant Maliki Legal School
of Morocco was leading Muslims astray through
its elaborate rules based upon human reason-
ing. Instead, Ibn Tumart emphasized the original
Islamic sources of the Quran and hadith and
taught a strict doctrine based on the Muslim doc-
trine of tawhid (unity). On his way home in 1117,
Ibn Tumart created a stir in a number of locations
through his preaching and aggressive treatment of
those he considered to be unbelievers.

Ibrahim Ibn Adham 341

Having raised the ire of the Almoravid govern-
ment in Marrakesh, Ibn Tumart retreated to his
own people, the Masmuda Berbers of the Anti-
Atlas Mountains, in 1121. There he laid the foun-
dations for the future Almohad dynasty, claiming
the title of Mahdi (messianic deliverer) and
implementing a rigorous religious ethic among
his Berber following. Posing as a holy man and
miracle worker, Ibn Tumart rallied the Masmuda
against the ruling Almoravid dynasty. Although
he failed in his attempt to take Marrakesh (1 124),
the city would eventually fall to his successor,
Abd al-Mumin (r. 1133-63), along with the rest
of North Africa and Islamicate Spain after Ibn
Tumart's death in 1130.

See also Andalusia.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: M. Kisaichi, “The Almohad Social-
Political System or Hierarchy in the Reign of Ibn
Tumart." Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo
Bunko 48 (1990): pp. 81-101; Roger Lc Tourneau, The
Almohad Movement in North Africa in the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1969).

Ibrahim Sec Abraham.

Ibrahim Ibn Adham (730-777) early Sufi
saint who was a model for piety in Sufi tradition and
whose conversion story mirrors that of the Buddha
Ibrahim ibn Adham was born a prince in Bactria,
Balkh (present-day Afghanistan) — where Bud-
dhism nourished until the 11th century — in a
recently created Arab settlement. Legend tells that
Ibn Adham s conversion to the Sufi path began
when out hunting in the forest one day he was
confronted by a voice prompting him to examine
his true calling in life. Like the Buddha, to whom
Ibn Adham is frequently compared, he thereupon
chose to renounce his claim to kingship and set off

for Mecca, leaving an infant son and wife behind,
to spend the rest of his life in saintly devotion to
Allah. In 748, he migrated from Mecca to Syria,
where for the following few decades he lived the
life of a wandering Sufi in the desert. It is believed
that he died around 777 in Syria while participat-
ing in raids against Byzantine Christians. He is
reported to have transmitted several hadith and
is remembered for his extreme asceticism and
generosity.

One of the earliest Sufis, Ibrahim ibn Ad ham's
legend grew and developed in the centuries fol-
lowing his death as he became a frequent model of
piety in Sufi treatises written in communities from
Arabia to East Asia. Early sources on Ibrahim ibn
Adham include hagiographies written in the 11th
century by al-Sulami and in the 13th century by
Farid al-Din al-Attar. Ibrahim ibn AdhanTs story
was told in the oldest Persian treatise on Sufism,
the classic Kashf aUmahjub by Al-llujwiri in
Lahore, Pakistan. A 17th-century Malay text, Bas-
tanus-salatir, written by an Indian Muslim named
Ar-Raniri, presented Ibrahim ibn Adham as one of
the greatest early saints of Islam. He stands out
as a paradigm of saintly devotion in such hagi-
ographies, like the most famous and earliest of
known women Sufis, Rabia al-Adawiya (d. 801).
But as he embodied the ideal of unsurpassed piety
and asceticism, Rabia stood for the ideal of pas-
sionate love for God. One famous story described
Ibn Adham s 14-year journey to Mecca and his
frequent stops for prayer at holy sites along the
way, only to discover upon reaching Mecca that
the Kaaba had to meet Rabia.

See also Buddhism and Islam.

Megan Adamson Sijapati

Further reading: Russell Jones, Nuru’d-din ar Rahini
Bastanus-Salatin, bab fasal 1: critical edition and
translation of the first part of Fasal 1, which deals with
Ibrahim ibn Adham (Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan
Pustaka, 1974); John Alden Williams, ed. Themes of
Islamic Civilization (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1971).

342 Id al-Adha

Id al-Adha (Arabic: Feast of Sacrifice)

The most important yearly festival holiday of the
Islamic calendar is Id al-Adha, or al-ld al-Kabir
(Great Feast). It is also known as Id al-Qurban
(Feast of Sacrifice), as well as Qurban Bayrami
(Sacrifice Feast) in Turkic lands, Bakar Id (Goat
Feast) in India, and Reraya Qurben (Sacrifice
Holiday) in Indonesia. In Muslim-majority coun-
tries today, it has been declared a public holiday.
The festival begins on the 10th day of the 12th
month (Dhu al-Hijja) of the Islamic lunar year, at
the conclusion of the annual hajj rites in Mecca,
and lasts for up to four days. According to Islamic
law, Muslims around the world who are able arc
obliged to sacrifice an unblemished sheep, goat,
cow, or camel. They are also expected to attend
a special communal prayer, traditionally held in
open air or at a mosque, where they listen to a
holiday sermon. Unlike other prayer times, there
is no ADHAN (call to prayer) performed. Muslims
believe that the festival represents complete obe-
dience to God, as Abraham obeyed him when
commanded to sacrifice his son. According to the
story, which has biblical roots and is retold in the
Quran and Islamic exegetical literature, a ram was
substituted in place of Abraham's son. Among the
Shia, this story is associated with themes of mar-
tyrdom and redemption.

The sacrificial feast allows all Muslims, pil-
grims and nonpilgrims alike, to experience a sense
of community at the conclusion of the hajj. Men
customarily perform the sacrifice with their own
hands according to ritual slaughtering procedures
approved by Islamic law, but meat can also be
obtained from qualified butchers. In Mecca, there
are special slaughtering facilities in the pilgrim
town of Mina, just outside the holy city. Muslims
living in the United States or Europe obtain their
meat from a halal butcher, or they go to a farm
where they can purchase an animal and slaughter
it themselves, as they would in a Muslim country.
women participate by preparing dishes made from
the meat of the sacrificed animal. Everywhere
Id al-Adha is a very festive time when people

gather together with family and friends. CHILDREN
wear bright new clothing. Muslim girls in India
and Pakistan show off fresh henna designs on
their hands and arms. In many communities, the
holiday affirms ties to deceased loved ones and
the poor, because people distribute food to the
needy in memory of the dead. Women usually
visit cemeteries during the Id to do this. Meat may
also be distributed through mosques and Islamic
charities, making Id al-Adha one of the few times
in the year when the needy eat meat. In modern
times, the internet has made it possible for people
to make donations online by credit card so that
needy Muslims anywhere in the world can join in
the FEASTING.

See also almsgiving; animals; food and drink;
FUNERARY RITUALS.

Further reading: Jonah Blank, Mullahs on the Main-
frame: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi Bohras
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); 104-1 10;
John R. Bowen, “On Scriptural Esscnlialism and Ritual
Variation: Muslim Sacrifice in Sumatra and Morocco."
American Ethnologist 19 (Nov. 1992): 656-671; Hava
Lazarus- Yafch, “Muslim Festivals." Numen 25 (April
1978): 52-64.

Id al-Fitr (Arabic: Feast of Fast-Breaking)

The second most important yearly festival on the
Islamic calendar after Id al-Adha is Id al-Fitr, or
al-ld al-Saghir (Little Feast). This holiday is also
known as Kuchuk Bayram (Little Feast) in Turkic
lands and Hari Raya Puasa (Fasting Day of Cel-
ebration) in Malaysia. The festival celebrates the
end of the Ramadan fast and begins with the sight-
ing of the new moon on the eve of the first day of
the 10th month (Shawwal) of the Islamic lunar
year. It usually lasts for up to three days. In Mus-
lim-majority countries today, it has been declared
a public holiday, like Id al-Adha. To prepare for
the holiday, each person is obliged to offer charity
for the needy during the closing days of Ramadan.
This is called zakat al-fitr or zakat Ramadan , and

idolatry 343

it is comparable to the animal sacrifices performed
for the Id al-Adha. It is supposed to earn forgive-
ness for wrongs done during Ramadan and help
provide assistance to the poor so that they can
enjoy the holiday too. Muslims who are able are
expected to attend a special communal prayer in
the early morning, traditionally held in open air
or at a MOSQUE, where they listen to a holiday SER-
MON. When prayers end, people go home to break
their fast with a daytime meal.

Like other major feasts during the year. Id
al-Fitr enhances the sense of community among
believers. People gather together with family and
friends; children go outdoors to play wearing
brightly colored new holiday clothes. Girls in
India and Pakistan show off fresh henna designs
on the hands and arms. Gifts are exchanged
between family members. Each local Muslim cul-
ture has its own holiday food traditions. In many
countries, sweet pastries are a favorite food, tra-
ditionally prepared by women at home during the
last days of Ramadan. Rice and vermicelli dishes
are also popular.

See also almsgiving; feasting; food and

DRINK.

Further reading: Marjo Buitclaar, Fasting and Feasting
in Morocco: Women’s Participation in Ramadan (Oxford:
Berg, 1993); Riadh El-Droubie, “Muslim Festivals.*’ In
Festivals in World Religions, edited by Alan Brown, 21 1-
233. (New York: Longman, 1986); Hava Lazarus- Yafeh,
“Muslim Festivals." Numen 25 (April 1978): 52-64.

idolatry

Idolatry (Arabic: shirk) in Islam is mentioned in
the Quran in a variety of forms whose root (s/i-r-
k) meaning is “sharing, participating, associating,"
in the context of “associating" anything other
than God with God. “Associationism" in Islamic
tradition has been applied in two basic contexts.
The primary meaning is usually understood as
actual polytheism or the worship of images, both
overt infringements of Islam's cardinal principle,

TAWHID , declaring in life and thought “the one-
ness of God.” The secondary and polemic sense
involves accusations by some Muslims against
other Muslims for being insufficiently “pure” in
thought or practice, even though those accused of
shirk might consider themselves monotheists in
good standing.

The early quranic contexts for shirk, mean-
ing polytheism and idolatry, identify “opponents”
of Muhammad and the early UMMA, or religious
community of Muslims, among the pagan Mec-
cans. According to one of the earliest postquranic
Arabic sources on pre-lslamic religion, Kitab al-
asnam (The book of idols) attributed to Hisham
ibn al-Kalbi (d. 821), the Prophet's pagan contem-
poraries among the QURAYSH, who dominated the
social, political, economic, and religious life of his
hometown, Mecca, had images of plural divini-
ties and sacred powers within the center of tribal
worship for the region, the Kaaba, including such
deities as Hubal, Shams, Sin, and, among others,
a triple goddess associated with Arabian star-wor-
ship of Venus as the morning-evening star who
is named briefly (Q 53:20) in the Quran as Allat
(fern, of Allah, lit. “the Goddess”), al-Uzza (fern,
“the Mighty One"), and Manat.

According to a highly problematic narrative
known later as the Satanic Verses, the triple
goddesses were alluded to in the eighth- to mid-
ninth-century biography of the prophet ( Sirat
rasul Allah) as well as described by Muslim histo-
rian al-Tabari in his early tenth-century History of
the prophets and kings as “the high flying cranes
(gharaniq) whose intercession is to be hoped for."
In other words, the early Meccans could continue
to have recourse to the triple goddess alongside
recourse to Allah. This reference to the "satanic
verses," which do not actually appear in the
Quran as we have it today, is usually explained
in Islamic exegesis as an occasion of abrogation
(tiaskh) in the Quran wherein God sent down a
later revelation (Q 53:19-23) to supersede and
“abrogate" the authority of the earlier narrative
suggested in the Sira. The quranic verses as they

344 Idris

stand in canonical Islamic revelation absolutely
deny both divine plurality and femininity as well
as any powers of intercession outside Allah's will.

The mushrik (one who associates) in broader
polemic understanding acts as if there were divine
beings other than God and may be viewed as a
polytheist as well as an idolater, even though he
is a Muslim. The accusation of “associationism"
applied to Muslims views with suspicion objects
of popular devotion, especially the veneration of
saints and other supermundane beings, as poten-
tial rivals for the sole worship the Muslim owes
to God. Later and modern Islamic interpreta-
tion view the two contexts of shirk — polytheist-
idolater and popular intcrcessionist — as virtually
synonymous. Such popular devotion, however,
became a large part of the belief and practice
of the ordinary person as opposed to the theo-
retical rigor and almost ascetic purity of practice
espoused by Muslim jurists and theologians. The
devotions of the vast majority of Muslims from
the lifetime of Muhammad down to modern times
have included ritual propitiation of a wide array of
spiritual beings (such as astral spirits and angels,
believed in medieval Islam to inhabit planetary
bodies; the JINN; and the invocation, direction, and
exorcism of spirits of the dead, whether familial or
spirits of local saints and holy persons), manipu-
lation of elemental and divinely created powers
of natural objects (planets and stars, lightning,
rain, wind, fire, the ocean, as well as sacred trees,
springs, and stones), ritual use of objects or
images of sacred power (the verbal and material
use of sacred texts in quranic calligraphy and
recitation), or even people and institutions treated
as objects of sacred power and recourse (prophets
and saints as in Muhammad and his family, the
Shii imams, Sufi saints, great teachers and healers,
and religious institutions such as famous mosques
and madrasas [legal colleges], which were at the
same time burial sites of local saints used as foci
of ziyara (pilgrimage, intercessory prayer, divina-
tory and healing rituals). In modern times, belief
in and practice of such popular devotions have

significantly declined, especially in highly urban-
ized and educated milieus. However, the underly-
ing belief in Gods presence in the world and in
his material instrumentality through nature and
revelation is still a core of the Islamic worldview.
Examples of popular devotion and intercessory
aid can still be found in living contexts in many
Muslim countries, whether modern jurists con-
tinue to think it “idolatrous" or not.

See also angel; Arabian religions, pre-Islamic;
authority; bidaa; Hinduism and Islam; interces-
sion; saint; theology.

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Further reading: Gerald R. Hawting, The Idea of Idola-
try and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to His-
tory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, The Book of Idols: Being a Transla-
tion from the Arabic of the Kitab al-asnam. Translated
by Nabih A. Faris (1952. Reprint, Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1972); Elizabeth Sirriych,
"Modern Muslim Interpretations of shirk . ” Religion 20
(1990): 139-159; Muhammad 1. H. Surly, The Quranic
Concept of al-shirk (Polytheism) (London: Ta Ha Pub-
lishers, 1982); Alford T. Welch, "Allah and Other
Supernatural Beings: The Emergence of the Quranic
Doctrine of tawhid." Journal of the American Academy
of Religion, Thematic Issue: Studies in Quran and Tafsir
47, no. 4 (1979): 733-753.

Idris Islamic prophet, usually identified with the
biblical Enoch

Idris is an unusual prophet briefly mentioned
twice in the Quran (Q 19:56-57; 21:85-86),
where he is described as trustworthy and patient.
The Quran adds that God had “raised him up to
a high place" (Q 19:57), a statement that most
Muslim commentators believe meant that God let
him enter paradise without first dying. This made
him a unique human being. Even his name is an
unusual one; it probably originated as a term in
ancient Hebrew for “interpreter" ( doresh ) of the

ijmaa 345

Torah. This is an early Jewish reference to Enoch,
who is mentioned in the Bible as a descendant of
Adam and an ancestor of Noah who had "walked
with God." Likewise, Islamic tradition regards
Idris as a prophet who lived between the time of
Adam and Noah. Eighth-century Muslim sources
explicitly mention that Idris's true name is Enoch
and that he is called Idris in Arabic because of his
devotion to the study (dars) of the sacred books
of his ancestors Adam and Seth (a son of Adam).
In the line of legendary prophets who preceded
Muhammad (d. 632), he is credited with being the
first person to write with a pen, to sew clothes,
and to study astronomy. According to one prophet
story, Idris's great piety attracted the attention
of the angel of death, who visited him for three
days in his human form and then rewarded him
with a tour of heaven, hell, and the gardens of
paradise. Muhammad is said to have met Idris in
the fourth heaven during his Night Journey and
Ascent. Sufi masters such as Ruzbihan Baqli (d.
1209) and MuHYI AL-DlN Ibn AL-ARABI (d. 1240)
also mention that they encountered him in their
visionary journeys.

See also Judaism and Islam; prophets and

PROPHECY.

Further reading: Yoram Erder, “The Origin of the Idris
in the Quran: A Study of the Influence of Qumran Lit-
erature on Early Islam.” Journal of Near East Studies 49
(1990): 339-350; Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi,
Arais al-majalisfi qisas al-anbiya, or “Lives of the Proph-
ets Translated by William M. Brinncr (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 2002), 83-85.

'f"t See JINNI.

ijmaa (Arabic: consensus, agreement)

A technical term used in Islamic law (f/qh), ijmaa
was the third authoritative source after the Quran
and the sunna considered by Sunni jurists when
they made a ruling or advisory opinion (fatwa). In

contrast to ijtihad (individual reasoned opinion),
ijmaa recognized the social and practical basis
of law. Also, unlike ijtihad, it was thought to be
free of error. The ulama justified using consensus
as a source in their interpretations of the sharia
by invoking a hadith attributed to Muhammad
that said, "My community will never agree in an
error." They also used quranic verses for support,
such as Q 2:143: “We have made you a middle
community [umma) so that you may be witnesses
before humankind." Thus, jurists linked ijmaa to
an idealized concept of Islamic community using
the words of sacred scripture and the Prophet.

Ijmaa was originally rooted in pre-islamic
Arabian custom, which continued to develop in
the Arabian Peninsula and in newly conquered
towns and settlements throughout the Middle
East in the wake of the Arab-lslamic conquests
of the seventh and eighth centuries. It gradually
evolved from being a sociocultural practice to a
religious one. Early scholars, judges, and admin-
istrators based their judgments on the Quran and
sunna (customary practice) of localities, such as
Medina and Kufa in southern Iraq. When they
needed to recommend what the correct sunna for
Muslims to follow should be, they looked to the
ijmaa of the local community. Even the selection
of hadith to substantiate what was sunna was
done in conformity to consensus. After al-Shafii's
efforts to systematize the science of Islamic juris-
prudence in the early ninth century, consensus
was increasingly identified with the practice of
the Muslim community during Muhammad's life-
time as established by the jurists who constituted
the chief authorities of the different law schools.
Defined largely in religious terms, it gained a kind
of perfection or infallibility in the eyes of Sunni
jurists that ijtihad and analogical reasoning (qiyas)
never had. The assertion of infallibility for Mus-
lim consensus helped give coherence to the legal
schools, make them more inclined to accept each
other's authority, and accept or reject customs and
practices originating in non-Muslim societies and
other religions. Jurists belonging to the Twelve-

- 4 = 5 ^

346 ijtihad

Imam branch of Shiism rejected the idea of the
infallibility of ijmaa. Instead, it was the 12th Imam
alone who could guarantee infallibility, which
means that Shii jurists had to strive to determine
what his opinion was for a particular question.

Sec also authority; m ujtahid; Shafii, Muham-
mad ibn Idris al-; Twelve-Imam Shiism.

Further reading: Wael B. Hallaq, "On the Authorita-
tiveness of Sunni Consensus," International Journal of

Middle East Studies 18 (1986): 427-454; , The

Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005).

ijtihad (Arabic: striving, exerting)

A technical term employed in Islamic jurispru-
dence (f/qh), ijtihad refers to the use of indepen-
dent judgment to arrive at legal rulings in matters
that are not explicitly addressed in the Quran and
sunna. A scholar who engages in ijtihad is known
as a M ujtahid. Both terms arc related to the Arabic
word jihad (struggle, effort), suggesting that, like
jihad, not all people are qualified to undertake it,
that the effort must be directed to meet a specific
end, and that it is regarded as a virtuous endeavor
even if it should fall short of its goal.

For most of its history, Islamic law has been
an ongoing process of scholarly study, reflec-
tion, debate, and critical reasoning grounded in
dynamic historical and social contexts, rather
than a code of timeless, inflexible rules. Although
modern scholars have claimed that the so-called
gate of ijtihad was closed as long ago as the 10th
century, ijtihad has, in fact, been a key aspect of
Islamic jurisprudence for centuries thereafter. It is
often contrasted with taqlid (imitation, tradition),
which refers to acceptance of rulings reached in
the past by ulama belonging to a particular legal
school or tradition, such as one of the four chief
Sunni legal schools. The two tendencies, ijti-
had and taqlid, have sometimes worked together
and sometimes in opposite directions. Both have
played significant roles in the development of the

Islamic legal tradition. Taqlid helped preserve the
Muslim community's memory of the sacred past,
while ijtihad helped it adapt to change and new
issues arising in the present.

In the first centuries of Islam, when the legal
tradition was only beginning to take shape in an
era of Arab-Islamic conquests, migrations, and
conversions, ijtihad was synonymous with ray,
individual opinion. Because the Quran did not
address all matters of consequence facing the
Muslim community after the death of Muhammad
in 632, and because the HADITH were only begin-
ning to be collected and used for legal purposes,
Muslim leaders and judges often had the freedom
to resolve legal questions with their own indi-
vidual reason and discretion. These questions per-
tained to many areas of religion and life: worship,
family law, criminal penalties, commerce, and
warfare. The early legal authorities who supported
this method of jurisprudence were called People
of Opinion (ray). This relatively free ijtihad
resulted in the formation of localized legal tradi-
tions in the new Islamicate empire. Some legal
authorities feared that the basis of law in religion
might be lost if opinion (or ijtihad) was relied
on too much. Consequently, by the early ninth
century, the People of Opinion found that they
were opposed by the People of Hadith, who, after
the Quran, wanted to give priority to the sunna
of Muhammad and his companions, which was
derived from the hadith. The most famous leader
of the tradition-minded People of Hadith was the
Baghdadi jurist Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 855).

By the 10th century, ijtihad had gained a place
in all four of the major Sunni legal schools, but it
was more limited than in the earlier centuries. It
was considered a religious duty that had to be hon-
ored by jurists, but it was to be used only if there
was no precedent in the Quran, the sunna, or the
consensus (ijmaa) of the school in which they had
been trained. Within each school, the jurists were
ranked according to reputation, expert knowledge
in the law, and experience. Only the ones who
excelled in these qualifications, the mujtahids ,

imam 347

could exercise ijtihad. The lower-ranking jurists
were not qualified to use ijtihad; they were only
to follow the traditional rulings honored by their
own school and those authorized by mujtahids.
Even so, Sunni jurists recognized that ijtihad did
not have the certainty that the Quran, sunna, and
consensus had and that it could lead to an imper-
fect or incorrect ruling. Jurists in Twelve-Imam
Shiism accept the priority of the Quran when they
make rulings, but then they look to the infallible
pronouncements of the imams. In their view,
particularly in the Usuli School of Shii fiqh, the
mujtahid is a highly esteemed jurist who makes
rulings on behalf of the Hidden Imam until his
messianic return. Their rulings tend to hold more
AUTHORITY, therefore, among the Shia than ihe rul-
ings of Sunni mujtahids hold among Sunnis.

When the great Muslim empires of the 16th
and 17th centuries — the Ottomans, Safavids, and
Mughals — weakened and fragmented in the face
of a series of internal and external challenges,
reform-minded ulama sought ways to reverse the
process and restore Muslim governments and
societies to their former grandeur. In part, they
blamed the sorry state of affairs in Muslim lands
on what they considered the rigidity and irratio-
nality of the traditional law schools and overem-
phasis on taqlid . Proclaiming that the “gate of
ijtihad " had been closed in the 10th century, they
wanted it reopened so that it could play a more
important role in adapting the sharia to mod-
ern life and restoring Islam to its original form.
Among those calling for such legal reform were
early Salafis such as Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905)
and a variety of later jurists and intellectuals.
Leading obstacles preventing such reformers from
realizing their goals have been a lack of agreement
about guidelines for how to conduct ijtihad and
the introduction of law codes based on Western
law. Nevertheless, many educated Muslims today
support the idea of using ijtihad to adapt the
sharia to modern life, even if it means turning
away from rulings preserved in the traditional
legal schools. Some very independently minded

reformers argue that it should be the right for any
educated Muslim to use ijtihad to bypass legal tra-
dition and construct an Islam suited to individual
values and spiritual outlook.

See also mufti; renewal and reform move-
ments; Salafism.

Further reading: Shaista P. Ali-Karamali and Fiona
Dunne, “The Ijtihad Controversy." Arab Law Quarterly
9, no. 3 (1994): 238-257; Wael B. Hallaq, “Was the
Gate of Ijtihad Closed?" International Journal of Middle
East Studies 16 (1984): 3-41; Rudolph Peters, “Ijtihad
and Taqlid in 18th and 19th Century Islam. Die Welt
des Islams 20 (1989): 132-145.

Ikhwan al-Muslimin, al- See Muslim
Brotherhood.

Ikhwan al-Safa See Brethren of Purity.

imam (Arabic: leader, guide, a person to
be imitated)

Imam is a term that has several meanings in
Islamic belief and practice. Its basic meaning for
Sunnis is “leader of group prayer" ( salat ), literally
the one “in front of* the congregation, standing
before the mihrab (niche indicating the qibla,
direction of prayer, facing the Kaaba in Mecca).
A leader of prayer can be any qualified adult
with sufficient knowledge of the prayer ritual.
Although “prayer leader" is the basic meaning of
the term imam , in practice an imam's function also
includes giving the sermon ( khutba ) from the pul-
pit (min bar) as part of Friday noon prayer, relating
interpretation of Islamic religious and legal texts
(for example, Quran, hadith, fiqh , theology)
to current events and issues in the local Muslim
community. Customarily, men must lead mixed or
male-only prayer gatherings, and women lead only
womens prayer groups. This traditional exclusion
of women from the imam's function in mixed

tCs!SS 348 imambarah

group prayer gatherings is beginning to be chal-
lenged by liberal Muslim organizations and com-
munities, such as the Progressive Muslim Union.
Also, women have begun to be trained as imams
at a recently established madrasa (legal college)
in Morocco. Having women imams is still con-
sidered problematic by the majority of Muslim
scholars and conservative Muslims worldwide.

Sunnis also use the term imam as an honor-
ific title for the eponymous founders of the chief
schools of Islamic law. Thus, Ahmad ibn Hanbal,
the namesake for the Hanbali Legal School, is
known as Imam Ahmad. In such contexts, the title
indicates that he is an exemplar, or leader to be
followed in matters of law.

For Shii Muslims imam is associated with
a fundamental doctrine concerning charismatic
male leadership that comes from Muhammad via
his daughter, Fatima, and son-in-law and cousin,
Ali, through his twin grandsons, Hasan and
Husayn, and their descendants (known collec-
tively as the AHL AL-BAYT, “Family of the House”).
Muslims who follow the guidance of these Imams
arc known as shiat Ali (the party of Ali). Forming
a dissenting minority after the death of Muham-
mad, the party of Ali believed that only a descen-
dant of Muhammad could lead the UMMA with the
necessary grace and spiritual authority. There are
three major groups of Shia who divide according
to the number of descending Imams they follow,
Twelve-Imam Shia (or the Imamiyya), Seven-
Imam Shia (or the Ismailiyya), and Five-Imam
Shia (or the Zaydiyya). Of the three groups, the
Twelve-Imam Shia is the largest community, today
found principally in Iran and Iraq, lsmaili Shiis
are numerous in northern India, while Zaidi Shiis
are a significant minority in Yemen.

The doctrine of imama , the Shii theology
concerning the Imams, institutionalizes the pro-
phetic authority and charisma of Muhammad
and his family. Spiritual attributes of the Shii
Imams include divinely inspired knowledge, or
knowledge of the unseen (i/m al-ghayb); divine
investiture (nass) rather than human election;

sinlessncss (isma) and infallible judgment; and
divine intimacy and friendship (wilaya). These
superhuman qualities make the Imams spiritual
mediators who are described in Shii hadith as
“pillar [sj of light” between Earth and heaven
and “witnesses for God to his creation.” Imams
provide the esoteric interpretation of revelation
(tawil) that guides the Shii community toward
salvation.

See also Ismaili Shiism; Sunnism; Zaydi Shiism.

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Further reading: Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their
History and Doctrines (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1990); Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shii
Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiism (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985); Barnaby
Rogerson, The Heirs of Muhammad: Islam's First Century
and the Origins of the Sunni-Shia Split (Woodstock,
N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2007); Abdulaziz Abdulhussein
Sachcdina. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in
Twelver Shiism (Albany: Slate University of New York
Press, 1981); W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative
Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni-
versity Press, 1973).

imambarah Sec Husayniyya.
imambargah Sec Husayniyya.
iman See faith.

India (Official name: Republic of India)

Located in South Asia, the modern country of
India extends 1,000 miles east and west and
1,000 miles north and south at its widest points.
It has an area of nearly 1.3 million square miles,
about one-third the size of the United States. It is
composed of five chief geographical regions: the
Himalayan Mountain Range along its northern

India 349

border, the Indus and Ganges River Plains, the
Thar Desert in the west near the Pakistan border,
the Deccan Plateau that defines peninsular India,
and a 4,350 mile coastline (including island ter-
ritories) that meets the Arabian Sea, the Bay of
Bengal, and the Indian Ocean. It shares its longest
border with Bangladesh in the east, followed
by Pakistan in the west, China and Nepal in the
north, and Burma and Bhutan in the northeast.
Sri Lanka lies just 18.5 miles off the southern
coast of India. India has several sizeable cities:
Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Delhi, Mumbai (for-
merly Bombay), Chennai (formerly Madras), and
Bangalore. The national capital is New Delhi, a
modern extension to the old city of Delhi; it is
situated on the banks of the Yamuna River in the
Indo-Gangetic plain.

The government of India is a federal parlia-
mentary democracy — the largest in the world. It
has a multiparty political system, with the two
leading parties being the Indian National Con-
gress Party and the Baharatiya Janata Party (BJP,
Indian People's Party). The majority party alliance
in the parliament selects the prime minister, who
chairs a council of ministers and holds executive
power. India also has an elected president, but this
is a ceremonial office. The president's term is five
years. Each of India's 28 states has its own elected
state legislature and chief minister. There are also
seven union territories, four of which are located
in outlying areas. The others are the territories of
Delhi (like Washington, D.C.), Chandigarh in the
Punjab, and Pondicherry (Puducherry), a former
Trench colony located in southern India.

India's population is estimated to be nearly
1.15 billion (2008). Hindus arc by far the major-
ity (80.5 percent). Sikhs make up about 2 percent
of the population, and other minority religions
include Zoroastrians, Christians, Buddhists, and
Jews. Muslims make up about 13.4 percent of
the total, or about 160 million. This means India
has one of the largest Muslim populations in the
world after Indonesia and Pakistan. Prior to the
1947 partition of India that resulted in the cre-

ation of Pakistan, it is estimated that about 24.3
percent of the country's population was Muslim
(1941 census). According to the 2001 census of
India, 97 percent of the country's Muslims live in
13 states. The states with the highest percentages
are Jammu and Kashmir (67 percent), West Ben-
gal (25.2 percent), Kerala (24.7 percent), Uttar
Pradesh (18.5 percent), Bihar (16.5 percent), and
Karnataka (12.2 percent). Several of the union
territories also have large percentages of Muslims:
Lakshadweep (95 percent), Assam (30.9 percent),
and Delhi (11.7 percent). About 61 percent of
India's Muslims today arc involved in agricul-
ture, whereas those living in cities tend to be

Visitors flock to the shrine of Hajji Ali, Bombay (Mum-
bai), India. (Juan E. Campo)

India 351

eastern Islamicate lands) in honor of their saints
(pirs) can attract hundreds of thousands from
across a wide spectrum of religious traditions.
The Shiis, for their part, have directed their piety
toward the imams and their descendants. They
hold large gatherings and processions during
Ashura, the annual commemoration of the mar-
tyrdom of Imam llusayn. Ismailis have similar
observances in honor of their Imams and pirs ,
and in difficult times, they have employed Sufi
ideas and symbols to avoid persecution by liter-
ally minded Sunni jurists and judges.

When Muslim rule was declining and British
colonial control was increasing, Islamic renewal
and REFORM movements began to arise in India.
Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624) and Shah Wali Allah
(d. 1762) were among the early pioneers in these
reform movements. After the suppression of the
1857 Muslim-Hindu uprising (known in British
history as the Sepoy Mutiny) against the govern-
ment of the English East India Company, Sunni
ulama at the Deoband madrasa near Delhi sought
to bolster Islamic EDUCATION among Indian Mus-
lims in order to preserve their tradition. Dcobandi
schools have since spread throughout South Asia,
and the ulama continue to be active in adapting
their religious traditions to the rapid changes
brought with modernity. Another consequence
of the 1857 uprising was the founding of the
Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh
by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), which was
designed to educate Muslims in the modern sci-
ences and prepare them for leadership in colonial
India. From 1919 to 1924, Muslims in northern
India participated in the Khilafat Movement in an
unsuccessful effort to revive a pan-Islamic caliph-
ate. Other important movements that originated
in India that have since had global impact are the
Dcobandi missionary movement known as the
Tablighi Jamaat (founded in the late 1920s) and
Abu al-Ala Mawdudis Jamaat-i Islami (founded in
1941), an Islamic political movement that became
an increasingly important political force in Paki-
stan after its creation in 1947.

ISLAM IN SOUTH ASIA:

A HISTORICAL SKETCH

The conventional understanding found in modern
India and often outside India is that its history
consists of three phases: an ancient Hindu Vedic
golden age from around 1200 b.c.e. to 1000 c.E.,
an Islamic age of foreign conquest and despotism
from around 1000 to 1600, and a British colonial
age that laid the foundations for modern inde-
pendent India from 1600 to 1947. An assortment
of facts can be brought forth in support of this
view of history. Such a view, however, tends to
treat Islam in monolithic terms, exaggerating the
role of religion at the expense of social, politi-
cal, and economic processes in Indian history.
It relies on the misleading idea of irreconcilable
gaps between Muslims and Hindus as well as
between Muslims and the British. These per-
ceived gaps are the results of India's experience
with colonialism and communal politics since
the 1930s and 1940s, rather than a reflection
of precolonial historical realities in South Asia.
In recent years, the three-phase model has been
given new life by Hindu nationalists and Mus-
lim radicals, as well as Western scholars such
as Samuel P. Huntington, who has proposed a
post-cold war world of civilizational “clashes”
based largely on religious identity. Now, however,
some scholars are questioning the validity of the
model, arguing that it is a gross oversimplifica-
tion and that nowhere is it more oversimplified
than in its conceptualization of the “Islamic age.”
It overlooks the variety of ways that Muslims
used to indigenize their religion in India during
the more than 1,000 years they have lived there,
the complex array of forms that Islam took there
(as described above), and how Indian Muslim
rulers and the English engaged in various sorts
of cooperation and power sharing even after the
1857 uprising. Conflicts and acts of violence did
occur and still do, but they were not confined
to the eras of Muslim rule, nor did they always
occur along religious or cultural "fault lines"
between Muslims and non-Muslims.

^ 352 India

Although the Arabs may have maritime con-
nections with India prior to the appearance of
Islam, the first recorded contact between Arab
Muslims and the people of the Indus Valley did
not occur until the campaign led by Muham-
mad ibn Qasim al-Thaqafi (d. 715), who invaded
Sind on behalf of the Umayyad Caliphate in 711
and reached as far north as the city of Multan.
Although maligned by later British historians and
Indian nationalists, the only early Islamic account
indicates that the raid was prompted by an attack
on a ship carrying Muslim pilgrims near the coast
of Sind (the lower region of the Indus River). The
non-Muslim subjects were Hindus and Buddhists
whom al-Thaqafi treated as "protected"' peoples
( dhimmis ), like Jews and Christians who accepted
Muslim rule and paid a special tax called the
jizya. There is little evidence that they were forced
to convert, as some later historians assert. Sind
became a province in the early Muslim empire.

The next major incursions by Muslim armies
did not occur until the turn of the 10th century,
when the controversial Turkic ruler Mahmud of
Ghazni (r. 998-1030) launched up to 17 raids
into Sind and adjacent regions from Ghazni, his
capital in Afghanistan. Mahmud, a defender of
Sunnism, conducted these raids partly to eradicate
Ismaili Shia who had settled in the Sind region.
But he also wanted to control the region to secure
its trade routes and plunder its wealth in order
to enhance revenues for his growing empire and
building projects in Ghazni. Hindu temples were
especially good targets because they contained
gold and precious gems. The most noteworthy of
the temples Mahmud attacked was Somnatha, a
Shiva temple located near a major regional port.
Such temple raids were common in the ancient
world and were also conducted by rival Hindu
kings against each other. Mahmud's raids paved
the way for direct Muslim rule deep in the Indo-
Gangctic plain. In 1192, the state that Mahmud
had created was destroyed by a short-lived Persian
dynasty known as the Ghurids. The commanders
they assigned to rule in Delhi became indepen-

dent and established the Delhi Sultanate, which
was to rule northern India until the arrival of the
Mughals in the early 16th century.

The first Delhi sultan was Qutb al-Din Aybek
(r. 1206-10), who initiated the building of the
Quwwat al-Islam (Power of Islam) Mosque and
the Qutb Minar, a monumental complex on the
southern outskirts of Delhi. It was built on the
site of a Hindu temple with stones taken from
destroyed temples. Aybek wanted the world to
know that Muslims were the new rulers in
the land. Interestingly, early Hindu sources and
inscriptions suggest that the new rulers were not
seen as Muslims by the local populace. They were
referred to instead in social or ethnic terms as
mlecchas (barbarians), Turushkas (Turks), Shakas
(Central Asians), or Yavana s (Greeks) in remem-
brance of those other foreigners who had invaded
India centuries before the Muslims. Conservative
ulama of the Delhi Sultanate and later chroniclers
considered the Indians to be unbelievers (kafirs)
and polytheists ( mushriks ) who must be fought
and subdued. However, this outlook was not the
prevailing one at the time. The practical necessi-
ties of organizing and ruling an expanding state
government meant that the Muslim Afghans,
Turks, and Persians, as minority rulers, had to
find ways of winning the cooperation of the popu-
lation. These included collaborating with Hindu
Rajputs (local kings), bringing non-Muslims into
government service, and treating the populace
not as disbelievers but as dhimmis. Intermarriage
between Muslims and Hindus also occurred. His-
torians of this period have found that there was
no widespread program of forced conversion to
Islam, nor was there wanton destruction of Hindu
places of worship, as is the conventional view
nowadays. Rather, Muslim rulers desecrated only
those temples that were closely identified with
rival Hindu rulers. They also patronized Hindu
temples. During the mid- 13th century, the Delhi
Sultanate was home to religious scholars and
Sufis seeking refuge from the Mongol onslaught
that was sweeping through Middle Eastern lands,

354 India

of Muslims — Bengal, the Punjab, Kashmir, and
Malabar — were those that were most distant from
the political centers of the Mughal empire.

Europeans became interested in India during
the 15th century because of the thriving spice
trade that involved Asia, India, the Middle East,
and Africa in a global system of maritime com-
merce. Columbus's first voyage of discovery to the
New World in 1492 was to find an alternate route
to the “Indies" for the Spanish monarchs. Shortly
thereafter, in 1498, Vasco de Gama sailed to India
via the Cape of Good Hope, opening an era of
European colonial expansion in Asia that would
last for four and a half centuries. The Dutch, the
French, and the English followed the Portuguese,
competing for market access and lucrative trade
agreements with Indian merchants and creditors.
Europeans found that in addition to spice, India
also had other sorts of goods that would bring a
profit in European markets, especially cotton and
silk textiles. The English East India Company,
created in 1600, opened trading "factories” (ware-
houses) at several Indian ports during the 17th
century to purchase and transport such goods to
market, but they found that the most lucrative
profits were to be made in Bengal, where the Gan-
ges River provided good access to production cen-
ters inland. This was also an area that was thriving
as a result of the Mughal policy of promoting
agricultural production on newly reclaimed lands
on the eastern side of the Ganges delta.

The Mughals gave the British free trade rights
so that by 1750 Bengal was providing 75 per-
cent of the company's goods. Meanwhile, the
company had created its own fortifications and
standing militia to protect warehouses and agents
from attacks by the Trench or local opponents
and thieves. The company also formed alliances
with local Mughal governors, providing them
with military assistance when it promised to be
advantageous. Before long, these governors, called
nawabs, found that by allying themselves with the
British they could w T in greater independence from
Mughal overlords in distant Delhi. This was an

era when there was a mingling of cultures as Brit-
ish agents became Indianized, some converting
to Islam and living like Mughal royalty. The situ-
ation changed significantly after company troops
defeated the forces of the nawab of Bengal at the
Battle of Plessey near Calcutta in 1757. With
this victory, the British began to select the local
Muslim governors themselves, and they were able
to levy taxes on the local population to pay for
goods that they shipped to England, rather than
use funds from British investors. They formed a
regular army with Indian recruits, mainly upper-
caste Hindus, called sepoys (from the Persian
sipahi, "infantryman"). This evolved into one of
the largest armies in the world by the end of the
18th century, replacing the forces of the Mughals
and local rulers. Bolstered by victories on the bat-
tlefield, the British developed an air of superiority
over the native populations. Company officials
and employees became more and more corrupt
and greedy in their dealings, and in 1 765, their tax
collecting privileges in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa
were legalized by a dispensation from the Mughal
emperor. British control in India increased in the
ensuing decades as they operated from headquar-
ters in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras. Mughal
rulers became British minions, with very little
independence beyond the walls of their imperial
palace at the Red Fort in Delhi.

In 1773, the British Crown appointed a gov-
ernor general to oversee company operations and
combat corruption among company officials. One
of the first governor generals was Lord Charles
Cornwallis (d. 1805), who had come to India in
1 786 after the defeat of his army by American and
French forces in America. The governor gener-
als inaugurated a series of land and tax reforms
and created an administrative organization that
became what is now known as the Indian Civil
Service. Although civil servants initially had to
learn Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, and other native
languages to conduct business, English eventually
was made the official language of administration.
English-language schools were established to train

India 355

Indians for employment in the civil service and to
serve as a new native elite to help the British rule
the land.

Company officials took an interest in India's
antiquities and the Sanskrit language as their
power increased. One of them, William Jones
(d. 1794), founded the Royal Asiatic Society of
Bengal in Calcutta (1784), an early center of
Orientalist scholarship. The research its scholars
conducted enhanced knowledge about Sanskrit
language, literature, and ancient Indian religion,
but it was done in a way that portrayed contem-
porary Indians as inferior to modern Europeans
and highlighted differences between Hindus and
Muslims. Thomas Macaulay (d. 1859), a leading
colonial official, declared in 1835 that after having
consulted with Orientalist scholars, he had con-
cluded, “a single shelf of a good European library
was worth the whole native literature of India
and Arabia" (Metcalf and Metcalf, 80-81). Jones's
scholarship also furthered the process of transfer-
ring Indian law from the hands of Muslim and
Hindu jurists to those of British-style civil courts,
with the ulama and pandits demoted to simply
being court advisers. The ethnocentric zeal of
reforming-minded British administrators even led
to banning the children of mixed Anglo-Indian
parentage from employment in the civil service.
The division between the British and Indians
increased in the 19th century with the invention
of racist theories of culture and the arrival of evan-
gelical Christian missionaries who eagerly sought
to convert Indian Hindus and Muslims from their
“heathen" ways. Even Indians educated in English
schools were treated with derision and contempt.
The antagonisms caused by the shortcomings of
British officials and their policies finally exploded
in 1857 with a rebellion that spread beyond the
ranks of the company army to the general popula-
tion in the cities of northern India. The violent
suppression of this “mutiny" brought an end to
company rule as well as to the Mughal dynasty.
India was placed under the direct rule of the Brit-
ish Crown, represented by the governor general.

who was reclassified as the viceroy of India. This
phase of Indian history now became known as
that of the British Raj (from the Hindi word for
“kingdom,” “rule”).

The 1857 rebellion was a clear sign that a
nationalist spirit was stirring in India. Native
elites had obtained English-language proficiency
and education in the history and liberal secularist
ideals of modern Europe. They used this knowl-
edge to organize themselves and argue for more
egalitarian treatment from British officials. The
railroad system created by the British after 1850,
the expansion of the postal service, and newspa-
pers made it possible for them to effectively com-
municate with each other across the great expanse
of India. At the same time, supporters of religious
reform arose in both the Hindu and Muslim com-
munities, many taking the route of liberalism,
others having strong separatist sympathies.

The desire for independence coalesced in the
creation of the secularly oriented Indian National
Congress (INC), convened originally in Bom-
bay in 1885 by English-educated Indians who
wanted to lobby for greater participation in the
civil service and local legislative councils. This
organization had majority Hindu membership,
but it reached out to English-educated Muslims in
the name of a united Indian nation. Most Muslim
leaders, including the reformer Sayyid Ahmad
Khan, declined to participate. The INC, however,
did attract Muhammad Ali Jinnah (d. 1948), a
Muslim lawyer who had been admitted to the
bar in London and practiced law in Bombay. He
joined the INC in 1895 and remained active until
differences with Mohandas K. Gandhi caused him
to resign in 1920. Jinnah was also a member of
the All-India Muslim League (A1ML), an organi-
zation founded in 1906 to win a greater role for
Muslim elites in the British colonial government.
A1ML, under Jinnah's leadership, joined with the
INC to pursue mutual interests, resulting in the
Lucknow Pact of 1916. This agreement called for
majority representation in government, extending
voting rights to more Indians, and separate elec-

356 India

torates for Muslims. AIML and INC also agreed to
support the British in World War 1; more than 1
million Indians served in the British armed forces
during this war.

After the war, both organizations participated
in the Khilafat movement (1919-24), but their
relations grew more strained when the move-
ment failed. Muslims continued to participate in
the effort to achieve self-government, but AIML
leadership became increasingly concerned about
their minority status in a democratic republic
where Hindus would be in the majority. They
knew that not only were they in the minority,
but also that the Muslim populace was scattered
across India, speaking different languages and
having different social statuses. Instituting the
sharia or an Islamic government was not on
their agenda. Rather, they sought ways to create
a sense of common purpose among India’s Mus-
lims to protect their political interests. Whereas
the leadership in Congress favored creating a
centralized federal government elected by the
majority with no guaranteed reservations for
Muslims, AIML leaders wanted more provin-
cial autonomy in parts of India where Muslims
were in the majority. They also wanted at least
a third of the seats in the legislature reserved
for Muslims. Not all Muslim leaders, however,
favored Muslim political advocacy. Indian ulama,
especially the Dcobandis, envisioned a Muslim
community who were educated in Islam and
its moral principles living together with other
Indians. Indeed, many supported the INC, as did
several prominent secular Muslims.

As Hindu and Muslim approaches to self-gov-
ernment diverged internally as well as externally,
many Indians joined in opposing British reluc-
tance to surrender power to the Indian people.
In the forefront of those opposed to Indian inde-
pendence was Winston Churchill (d. 1965), an
imperialist and political conservative who would
become England's heroic prime minister during
World War II. Regarding Indians as children who
needed to be disciplined, the British resorted on

several occasions to the use of brute force to quell
acts of civil disobedience and nonviolent demon-
strations. Nevertheless, Indian political parties
achieved greater voting rights and were able to
hold elections in 1937. This brought the INC to
power for the first time. The AIML had a weak
showing in these elections; even where Muslims
were in the majority, local parties based on class
rather than religious identity did better than the
AIML. The INC, on the other hand, failed to bring
about meaningful changes in the aftermath of the
election, thus limiting its ability to win skeptical
Muslim voters to its ranks.

World War II brought further division between
the two parties. The INC, departing from its pro-
British stance in World War I, refused to support
the British. Subhash Bose (d. 1945), a two-term
INC president, even raised an army with Japanese
support to fight against them, hoping to achieve
independence by bringing about a British defeat.
The mainstream INC leadership, led by Gandhi,
won widespread popular support by mobiliz-
ing large-scale acts of civil disobedience against
the British, known as the Quit India Movement.
Many of the party's leaders spent the war in prison
as a consequence, but they triumphed after the
war by sweeping the elections of 1945-46. The
AIML, on the other hand, decided to support the
British war effort in the hope that their political
position would improve with the wars conclu-
sion. In the postwar elections, it, too, could claim
victory. It won all reserved seats in the national
legislature, plus most of the Muslim seats in local
legislatures.

The AlMLs success was a result of a strategy
of reaching out to rural voters through Sufi pir s
and taking advantage of divisions among local
political parties. Jinnah’s party also gained popu-
lar support among Muslims by invoking the ideal
of Pakistan, a "pure land" for all Indian Muslims
where they could be free to realize their ideals to
the fullest. The idea of a political entity to protect
Muslims from domination by non-Hindus had
been articulated earlier by Muhammad Iqbal (d.

India 357

1938), a leading Indian intellectual, past presi-
dent of AIML, and close associate of Jinnah. In
the elections aftermath, Jinnah claimed to be the
“sole spokesman'' for India's Muslims, but he was
still undecided about whether that state would be
within the boundary of an Indian nation or out-
side it. Most Muslims, in fact, were not calling for
a two-state partition but a self-governing Muslim
entity in a united India. Hindu-Muslim commu-
nal rioting and the inability to find a compromise
solution with INC leadership, particularly with
its chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru (d. 1964), even-
tually convinced Jinnah that a separate Muslim
state in areas where Muslims were in the majority
was indeed necessary. Such an entity would have
to consist of grouped provinces, not fragmented
states scattered across India as some were propos-
ing. The two provinces that would form the new
Muslim state were the Punjab in the west and
Bengal in the east.

The British realized that in their weakened
postwar position they could no longer hold
nationalist forces at bay in India or anywhere
else in the world where they still had colonies
or mandate territories. In March 1946, there-
fore, they sent a high-level delegation to India
to try to mediate the differences between the
contending Indian nationalist parties, hoping
to prevent a two-state partition. This is what
Gandhi desired, too, and he even proposed that
Jinnah be named India's first prime minister, an
idea that was ignored. Hindu nationalists assas-
sinated him in January 1948 because of their
anger over his efforts to achieve reconciliation
between Muslims and Hindus. In the end, the
British delegation failed, and Lord Mountbatten,
the Crown's last viceroy, was appointed in Feb-
ruary 1947 to oversee the drawing of political
boundaries and the smooth transfer of power to
the leaders of India and Pakistan no later than
June 1948.

The Punjab region straddled the western bor-
der between the two newly created countries and
became the site where intercommunal hatreds

exploded in a frenzy of mass murder, rape, and
flight during the summer of 1947. Terrified Sikhs
and Hindus fled eastward to India, and terrified
Muslims fled westward to Pakistan. Although
statistics in such turbulent conditions are often
imprecise, it is widely accepted that as many as
10 million were uprooted and 1 million died in
the violence. The reverberations of this painful
moment in Indo-Pakistani history can still be
felt in the streets and byways of both countries.
Pakistani Muslims remember this event as a Hijra,
recalling the Hijra of Muhammad from Mecca to
Medina in 622.

On August 15, 1947, India's first prime minis-
ter, Jawaharlal Nehru, stood before a large crowd
and proclaimed India's independence. It was a
bittersweet moment, because it combined the
thrill of independence with the pains of parti-
tion. Nehru chose to raise India's new flag that
day in front of Old Delhi's Red Fort, the former
seat of the Mughal rulers. The previous evening,
speaking before the Constituent Assembly in New
Delhi, he had declared, “The past clings on to us
still." The choice of the site and Nehru's words
indicate that the founding of the new republic was
done with a keen awareness of how it had taken
shape during a long history of Hindu, Muslim,
and British interaction. It is also worth noting
that not all Indian Muslims migrated to Pakistan.
About half of them stayed, declaring that India
was their true home.

On August 15, 2007, India celebrated its 60th
anniversary. The intervening years were ones
that saw Muslim participation in Indian politics,
including three Muslims who served as president.
They were also a time marked by several conflicts
and near-conflicts with Pakistan. The two coun-
tries still have not reached a settlement on the
question of Kashmir, a borderland Muslim major-
ity state that was officially made part of India at
the time of partition. Nevertheless, Indians and
Pakistanis continue to share a common history
and culture, including a love for romantic poetry,
popular music, curried foods, Bollywood films,

358 Indonesia

and, above all, the sport of cricket. The rise of
religious radicalism among Hindu and Muslim
militants has torn at the fabric of the Indian polity,
with violent outbursts at Ayodhya and Mumbai
in 1992 and Gujarat in 2002. Such communal
violence is very likely to cause further trouble
at home in the foreseeable future, and it may
also spill over the lndo-Pakistani border. Since
both countries have recently acquired arsenals
of nuclear weapons, the need for intercommunal
peacemaking and conflict resolution on the local
and regional levels is more important now than
ever before.

Sec also Azad, Abu al-Kalam; Barelwi, Sayyid
Ahmad; Biruni, Abu Rayhan al-; Bohra; cinema;
dhimmi; Faraizi movement; Ghalib, Mirza Asad
Ali Khan; Ghazal; government, Islamic; Hinduism
and Islam; Jamiyyat Ulama-i Hind; Nepal; Orien-
talism; qawwall

Further reading: Jackie Assayag, At the Confluence of
Two Rivers: Muslims and Hindus in South India (New
Delhi: Manohar, 2004); Fred W. Clolhcy, Religion in
India: A Historical Introduction (New York: Routlcdgc,
2006); Richard M. Eaton, cd., India's Islamic Tradi-
tions, 711-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2003); , “Temple Desecration and Indo-Mus-

lim States.” In Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking
Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia , edited by
David Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence, 246-281
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000); John
Norman Hollister, The Shia of India (1953. Reprint,
New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation,
1979); Gordon Johnson, Cultural Atlas of India: India,
Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
(New York: Facts On File, 1996); Bruce B. Lawrence,
“The Eastward Journey of Muslim Kingship: Islam
in South and Southeast Asia." In The Oxford His-
tory of the Muslim World, edited by John L. Esposito,
395-431 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf. A Concise His-
tory of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002); David Pinault, “Shiism in South Asia." Muslim
World 87, nos. 3-4 (July-October 1997): 235-257.

Indonesia (Official name: Republic of
Indonesia)

The modern nation of Indonesia has the larg-
est population of Muslims in the world. It was
formally established in 1950 as the culmination
of several steps following World War II in which
the Dutch gave up control of what had previously
been the Dutch East Indies. Indonesia is a demo-
cratic republic whose 20th-century history was
greatly influenced by its two presidents, Sukarno
(r. 1945-67) and Suharto (r. 1967-98). It has also
had a woman president, Megawati Sukarnoputri
(2001-04), Sukarno's daughter. Administratively,
Indonesia is divided into 33 provinces, several of
which have special religious status. Hinduism is
protected in Bali, and the sharia has been insti-
tuted in Aceh (on Sumatra).

Consisting of some 17,000 islands, Indonesia
stretches from Sumatra in the west to the island
of New Guinea (which Indonesia shares with
the nation of Papua New Guinea) in the east. It
includes the islands of Java, Borneo (which it
shares with the nations of Malaysia and Brunei),
Bali, and Sulawesi. The entire island of Timor was
for a brief period (1975-2002) part of Indonesia,
but its eastern half (formerly under Portuguese
rule) voted to separate in 2002 and emerged as an
independent nation. Indonesia's capital is Jakarta,
the largest city in the country with more than 8.8
million residents (2005). Located on the island
of Java, it is home to the Istiqlal (Independence)
Mosque, which, built in 1975, is the largest in
Southeast Asia.

Indonesia is multiethnic in the extreme, with
about 300 different ethnic groups. The largest is
Javanese (40.6 percent), followed by the Sunda-
nese (15 percent) and the Madurese (3.3 percent).
There is also a significant Han Chinese minority
(2 percent), which dominates the privately owned
business sector. This ethnic diversity is celebrated
in the country's motto, Bhinneka tunggal ika, or
“unity in diversity." The country recognizes the
diversity, but in the face of the splintering effect
such diversity can produce, it has promulgated

Indonesia 359

several unifying principles. The state philosophy
of Pancasilci (Sanskrit: five principles) promotes
the idea of finding unity in the belief in one God,
the first of the five principles. The other four prin-
ciples are belief in a just and civilized humanity,
national unity, democracy, and social justice. The
government recognizes six major religious com-
munities — Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian,
Roman Catholic, and Protestant — while privileg-
ing Islam somewhat as the majority religion.

The present religious diversity of the islands
began with the traditional folk religion of the
original inhabitants. Hinduism came to Sumatra
and Java as early as the second century c.E., and
it grew in importance for the next millennium.
Hinduisms hegemony was briefly challenged by
Buddhism, which found its major support in Java
in the ninth century. The ninth-century Mahayana
stupa at Barobudur is a reminder of this phase
of the country's history. It was renovated by the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cul-
tural Organization (UNESCO) in 1973 and is now
an international tourist site as well as a place of
worship and pilgrimage. A Hindu kingdom, the
Majapahit, founded in the 13th century, grew to
include much of what is modern Indonesia. After
the spread of Islam in the 16th century. Buddhism
disappeared, and Hinduism was pushed back to
a few enclaves, of which the island of Bali is the
most notable. Buddhism was reintroduced in the
20th century. Christianity came to Indonesia as
early as the seventh century but made real prog-
ress only with the arrival of European colonial
powers in the 13th century. Three centuries of
Dutch control allowed the Reformed Church to
establish centers throughout the islands.

Islam was originally brought to the Indonesian
islands during the first millennium c.E., but only
in the 13th century did settled Muslim communi-
ties appear as a result of maritime trade networks
that linked Southeast Asia with the Indian Ocean
basin and the Middle East. The first Muslims may
have come from Gujarat and Malabar on the west
coast of India, followed by Arabs from Hadramaut

on the Arabian Peninsula. In 1297, Sultan Malik
al-Salih (d. 1297) became the first Muslim ruler in
what is now Indonesia. His kingdom was in Aceh,
which occupies the northern tip of Sumatra. Islam
spread during the heyday of the Majapahit king-
dom in eastern Java and made gains as local rulers
adopted the new faith. During the 15th century,
the sultanate of Malacca (what is now Malaysia)
supported the spread of Islam through Sumatra
and Java. At the same time, the Majapahit king-
dom was suffering from severe inner fragmenta-
tion. The Islamic kingdom of Demak founded on
Java in 1478 would, with a victory in 1527, claim
to have finally succeeded Majapahit rule. From
this point on, Islam would steadily come to domi-
nate the islands, but often infused with native,
Hindu, and Buddhist elements.

The fragmentation of Hindu rule in the 15th
century and the rise of Islam coincided with the
coming of the Portuguese (1512) and then the
Dutch (1602). The Dutch East India Company
dominated the islands for two centuries but fell
into bankruptcy. In 1800, it yielded control to
the government of the Netherlands. There were
several revolts against Dutch rule, which was
ended in World War II when the Japanese occu-
pied the islands and nationalist forces prevailed at
the end of the war in 1945. Since that time, rule
by the central government has been challenged
by Islamic groups in Aceh and the Darul Islam
(House of Islam) movement.

The early Muslims followed the Shafii Legal
School, and to the present almost all Indonesian
Muslims arc Shafiis. Islam is especially strong
in Aceh and Java due to the high esteem com-
munities give to the ulama and religious board-
ing schools, the pesantren (Javanese: place of
students). Traditional learning focuses on Arabic
language, quranic studies, Islamic jurisprudence
(f/qh), and Sufism, but modern secular education
and vocational training are also available. Sufism
formed a significant stream of Muslim practice
and was especially significant in Java. According
to traditional accounts, Sunan Ampel, a Muslim

360 infidel

saint ( wali ) and ruler of a small province of the
Majapahit kingdom, formed the Walisongo (or
Wali Sanga), a council composed of nine saints, in
the late 15th century. The saints engaged in mis-
sionary activities, founding centers and mosques
at Demak and Giri. Centers associated with their
names continue to provide spiritual guidance for
Indonesians. More than two dozen different Sufi
orders have established themselves in the country,
some originally from South Asia and others from
the Middle East. The Naqshbandis and Qadiris are
two of the leading orders in Indonesia. The tombs
of some of the early Javanese Sufi saints have
become pilgrimage sites. Indonesians have also
participated in the annual HAJJ to Mecca, espe-
cially after the introduction of modern forms of
transportation in the 19th century and indepen-
dence in 1945. Contact with religious scholars in
Mecca and Medina has contributed significantly
to Islamic reform movements and DAAWA activities
in Indonesia. Since the 1980s, Indonesia regularly
sends about 200,000 pilgrims per year, more than
any other country. Another distinction is that
more women than men participate, unlike other
Muslim countries.

Today more than 86 percent of the Indonesian
population identify as Muslims (2000), making
the country the home to the largest number of
Muslims in the world, in excess of 200 million.
Included in the larger Muslim community, along
with followers of scriptural Islam and Sufis, is
a significant number of followers of a variety of
Islamic-inspired syncretistic religions. Many mix
Islam with native Indonesian religions, often
characterized by the inclusion of ancestor venera-
tion. Others are new spiritual movements such as
Subud and Sumarah.

On December 26, 2004, much of Aceh and
other parts of coastal Sumatra were devastated by
a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 Indone-
sians. Much of the damage was centered on Banda
Aceh, the provincial capital. An international effort
was launched to help the Indonesian government
bring emergency relief to the survivors and rebuild

affected areas. Islamic Relief, a London-based non-
governmental organization, was one of the agen-
cies that participated in this effort.

See also Buddhism and Islam; colonialism;
Hinduism and Islam.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Greg Barton and Greg Fealy, eds.,
Nahdlatul Ularna, Traditional Islam and Modernity in
Indonesia (Clayton, Aust.: Monash Asia Institute, 1996);
B. J. Boland, The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia
(The Hague, Netherlands: H. H. 1. Smith, 1970); Bahtiar
Effendy, Islam and the State in Indonesia (Singapore:
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003); R. S. Kipp
and S. Rogers, Indonesian Religion in Transition (Tucson:
University of Arizona Press, 1987); Karen Petersen,
"The Pcsantrcn at Surialaya." Saudi Aramco World 41
(November/December 1990): 8-15.

infidel See idolatry; kafir.

Insan al-Kamil, al- See Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi
al-Din; Perfect Man.

intercession

Belief in intercession involves the theological prin-
ciple that prayers and practices on another's behalf
have the power to bring salvation or blessing. Sev-
eral terms in Arabic signify the idea of intercession,
principally shafaa and wasila (or tawassal ), the
former emphasizing the substitutionary aspect and
the latter the mediating aspect of intercession.

In the Quran, the term shafaa appears 24
times, and its significance is ambivalent. The
Quran clearly indicates that there will come a
time when no intercessory power will avail. This
is confirmed in the canonical hadith texts of al-
Bukhari, Muslim, and al-Tirmidhi, which contain
traditions indicating that due to the prayers of
Muhammad, no one will remain left in the Fire

Iqbal, Muhammad 361

except those specifically named in the Quran.
Less clear is whether prior to Judgment Day,
prayer on another's behalf will have any efficacy.
Several passages indicate that God grants interces-
sory power to those whom he chooses (Q 2:255,
10:339; 19:87; 20:109; 21:28; 34:23; 40:7; 42:5;
53:26). There are also hadith describing Muham-
mad's practice of praying in cemeteries on behalf
of the dead. This tradition is continued in the
standard funeral prayers ( salat al-janaiz ), which
include a communal supplication to God and
the Prophet on behalf of the deceased. However,
several other verses in the Quran emphasize the
futility of appealing to intercessors of any kind on
the part of the wrong-doers (Q 6:94; 7:53; 21:28;
30:13; 36:23; 39:43; 40:18; 74:48) and that the
privilege of intercession is the sole province of
Allah (Q 6:51; 6:70; 10:18; 32:4; 39:44).

Such passages give ground to a host of later
commentators, such as the famous 14th-century
scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), who vehemently
opposed the practice of prayer and supplication
at the tombs of the dead for their intercession
with God. Among many Sunnis, however, belief
in the ability of Muhammad and the saints, those
who are closest to God (the awliya), to bring
the prayers of the common people closer to God
is nearly universal. The practice is defended by
many on the grounds that these saints are models
of piety, that they are better able to communicate
directly with God, and that contemplation at
any grave provides an important reminder of the
ephemerality of life. However, such prayers are
equally universally challenged by absolute mono-
theists who claim that such prayers commit SHIRK
(assigning partners to God) and appear to ques-
tion the omnipotence and omnipresence of God.
Among the Twelve-Imam Shia, the intercessory
power of the IMAMS is affirmed, and prayer at their
tombs and those of other members of the AHL AL
BAYT (the house of the Prophet) is canonical.

See also afterlife; bidaa; funerary rituals;
Shiism.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Interces-
sion (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 1998); Shaun Marmon,
“The Quality of Mercy: Intercession in Mamluk Society.''
Studia Islamic 87 (1998): 125-139; David Pinault, “Shia
Lamentation Rituals and Reinterpretations of the Doc-
trine of Intercession: Two Cases from Modern India.”
History of Religions 38, no. 3 (1999): 285-305; Annema-
rie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The
Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1985).

intifada See Israel; Palestine.

Iqbal, Muhammad (1877-1938) leading
Indian poet, intellectual, and statesman
Muhammad Iqbal, a remarkably brilliant Muslim
intellectual who initially articulated the idea of mod-
ern Pakistan, was born in Sialkot, a town north of
Lahore. His father owned a tailor shop. He received
both his B.A. (1897) and M.A. (1899) degrees from
the Government College in Lahore. An outstanding
student, he excelled in Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and
English and emerged from the university as a poet
of note in both Urdu and Persian. In 1903, while a
faculty member at his old school, he published his
first book, a study of economics.

In 1905, he traveled to Europe for postgraduate
studies and completed a Ph.D. at Munich two years
later after completing a dissertation on Persian
metaphysics. He came to know some of the most
brilliant scholars in Europe at the time, including
the Orientalists Thomas Arnold, E. G. Brown, and
R. A. Nicholson. He taught for a year at London
University, was admitted to the bar, and in 1908
returned to what then was India. For the next years,
Iqbal practiced law, taught part time in Arabic and
English literature, and wrote the Urdu and Persian
poems that would make him famous. In 1915, he
quit his teaching post to spend time promoting
humanistic Islamic reform. In 1923, he received a
knighthood from the British government.

Iqbal entered politics in 1926 and was elected
to the Punjab Legislative Council, where he

' Cs =^ ) 362 Iran

served for three years (1926-29). A close ally of
Muhammad AliJinnah (d. 1948), he became presi-
dent of the All-India Muslim League in 1930.
From this post, he moved from previous ideas
about the coexistence of Islam and Hinduism in
India and began to advocate the idea of establish-
ing an independent Muslim state to be carved out
of Indian territory. For this idea, he is known as
the “thinker of Pakistan” (mufakkir-i Pakistan).
Inspired by the reformist legacy of the Aligarh
movement, he also called for a “reconstruction" of
Islamic thought, and the majority of his writing,
including his poetry, was to this end. Although
Iqbal opposed the secular nationalism of Europe,
he believed that the formation of an independent
state on the Indian subcontinent would somewhat
reverse the disasters faced by the Muslims in the
early years of the 20th century, including the fall
of the Ottoman caliphate. Iqbal did not live to see
the realization of his dream, as he passed away in
1938. His tomb is located in Lahore, Pakistan.

See also Hinduism and Islam; renewal and

REFORM MOVEMENTS.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Muhammad Iqbal. The Reconstruc-
tion of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore: Institute of

Islamic Culture, 1986); , Tulip in the Desert: A

Selection of the Poetry of Muhammad Iqbal (Montreal:
McGill-Queens University Press, 1999); Annemarie
Schimmel, Gabriels Wing: A Study into the Religious
Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal (Pakistan: Muhammad
Suhcyl Umar, 2000); Dieter Taillieu, Francis Laleman,
and Winand M. Callewaert, Descriptive Bibliography
of Atlanta Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) (Brussels:
Peeters, 2000).

Iran (Official Name: Islamic Republic of
Iran, formerly Persia)

Located in southwest Asia (the Middle East), Iran,
comparable in size to the state of Alaska, covers an
area of 628,000 square miles. Deserts constitute a

large portion of this area, and two major mountain
ranges, Alburz and Zagros, cover about 50 percent
of the entire land. The Caspian Sea in the north,
Persian Gulf in the south, and more than a dozen
major rivers throughout the country are its main
water resources. Iran shares borders in the north
with the Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and
Turkmenistan; in the east with Afghanistan and
Pakistan; and in the west with Iraq and Turkey.
Its capital city is Tehran, near the Caspian Sea in
the north.

Iran's population is estimated at 65.8 million
(2008 cst.), with an equal divide between men
and women. Persians make up 51 percent of
the population. Azeris, a Turkic people, are the
largest non-Persian minority and constitute 24
percent of the population. They are followed by
the Gilaki and Mazandaranis (8 percent), Kurds
(7 percent), Arabs (3 percent), Lurs (2 percent),
Baluchis (2 percent), and Turkmen (2 percent).
Iran is a multiethnic and multireligious country
with an 89 percent Shii Muslim majority. Sunni
Muslims make up 9 percent of the population,
mostly Baluchis and Kurds. The remaining 2 per-
cent are Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Bahai.
The major language spoken is Persian (Farsi), an
Indo-European language.

Iran is an ancient country with more than
2,500 years of recorded history. The Greeks called
it Persia after the southwestern region Fars, which
was the home of the founders of the Achaemc-
nian dynasty (559-330 b.c.e.). The Achaemenians
established a powerful and sophisticated Persian
empire in the ancient world. The Sassanian dynasty
(224-651 c.E.) was the last Persian empire before
the Muslim Arab conquest that began in 637 and
was finalized by 651. Within two centuries of the
conquest, Islam had largely replaced Zoroastrian-
ism, which had been the ancient religion of Persia
and the official religion of the Sassanian Empire.
Iran remained mostly Sunni until the coming of
the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722), which patron-
ized Twelve-Imam Shiism and made it the official
religion of the state. In the 19th century, Britain

Iran 363

and Russia competed for influence in Iran, thus
exposing it to increased Western influence.

The Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11
declared the advent of modernity by challenging
the absolute rule of the monarch. At the same
time, William Knox D'Arcy, a wealthy English
investor, discovered oil in southwestern Iran in
1908, and in 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Com-
pany was founded. This company was renamed
the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1935, and it
became British Petroleum in 1954. Oil revenues
helped finance Iran's modernization during the
20th and 21st centuries.

The Pahlavi monarchy (1925-78) emerged
as a result of the social and political turmoil of
the constitutional era. The first Pahlavi monarch,
Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878-1944) established a
despotic, centralized modern state. Emulating
what Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) was
doing in Turkey in the 1920s, he sought to intro-
duce modern industry and implement economic
and social reforms. It was during his reign, also,
when the country's ancient name Persia officially
became Iran, a name based on Aryan, the name of
an ancient Indo-European people. In time, due in
part to the impact of oil wealth, the Pahlavis pro-
duced drastic economic and cultural discrepan-
cies among the people. In 1941, Reza Pahlavi was
deposed by British and Soviet forces who occupied
the country fearing he would become an ally of
Nazi Germany. They replaced him with his young
son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1941-78),
who allowed Iran to become a close ally of the
United States after World War 11. In 1951, nation-
alist democratic elements were strengthened by
the election of Muhammad Mossadegh (d. 1967)
as prime minister. When he moved to national-
ize Iranian oil production, British and American
covert operatives arranged for him to be removed
from office in 1953, thereby strengthening the
Shah's hold on the country. During the 1960s,
with U.S. support, he introduced the White Revo-
lution, a large-scale modernization program that
surpassed anything his father had done. This pro-

Iranian youth reads Quran at home. Framed pic-
tures on mantle (left to right): Ayatollah Muhammad
Beheshti, the Shahada, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
(National Geographic Magazine)

gram angered elements of the Iranian populace,
especially the Shii religious authorities, the tradi-
tional merchant class (the bazaaris ), and leftists.

Pahlavi rule was brought to an end in 1979
as a result of massive public demonstrations and
national strikes that were held for more than a
year. The demonstrators were ordinary people
from all walks of life and varied political and
religious affiliations. Their undisputed demand
was democratic rights and an end to the Pahlavi
monarchy. This notwithstanding, the religious
faction of the revolutionary movement under
the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
(19017-89) established itself as the state author-
ity by eliminating opposition groups and intel-
lectuals who posed a challenge to them and by
holding a national referendum that imposed
a choice between monarchy and an Islamic

Iranian Revolution of 1 978-1 979 365

Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979

The overthrow of the shah of Iran, Moham-
mad Reza Pahlavi (1919-80), in 1979 by popu-
list forces led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
(1902-89) established the Islamic Republic of
Iran. This revolution has been regarded as one
of the most significant in modern history, along
with the French Revolution of 1789 and the Rus-
sian Revolution of 1917. What makes the Iranian
Revolution unique is the important role played
by religion. Even though antishah sentiments
were held by a wide spectrum of urban Iranians,
Islamic revolutionary symbolism, together with
anti-Western sentiments, played a major role in
uniting the opposition. Moreover, the creation of a
Shii revolutionary government under Khomeinis
leadership inspired radical Islamic groups in
many Muslim countries during the 1980s and
1990s. The revolution was also a factor in several
Persian Gulf wars during this period. Many Irani-
ans emigrated to the United States as a result of
the revolution.

Bolstered by development assistance from
the United States and increased oil revenues, the
shah's government pushed a program of aggres-
sive social and economic reforms in the 1960s
and 1970s to make Iran a modern nation in accor-
dance with Western standards of progress. These
reforms sought to promote industrialization and
land reform, improve women's rights, and support
the establishment of Western-style coeducational
institutions. It was reminiscent of Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk's modernization program in Turkey dur-
ing the 1920s. The program was implemented in
an authoritarian manner without seeking popular
support and was plagued by inflation, land specu-
lation, and spiraling unemployment. Jalal Al-e
Ahmad (d. 1969), an Iranian writer, condemned
the increased Westernization of his country and
called it a disease — ghctrbzadcgi (Westoxication).
The United States, through its widely acknowl-
edged support for the shah, was increasingly seen
as being the source of this “malady." Iranians
objected to the land reforms, rapid sexual integra-

tion in schools and the workforce, compulsory
Western dress in public contexts while traditional
religious forms of dress such as the veil or chador
were banned, using the pre-lslamie Achaemenid
solar calendar in place of the Islamic lunar cal-
endar, and giving preferential treatment to West-
ern — first British, then American — business and
diplomatic interests. The more the resistance to
the shah's modernization projects grew, the more
the shah's secret police force, SAVAK (notorious
for illegal and violent methods), compelled com-
pliance and repressed dissent. Growing disaffec-
tion with the shah's rule among diverse sectors of
Iran's population testified to the increasing sense
of internal corruption of the Iranian national
character, expressed in Shii terms as seduction by
the West for ephemeral material benefits. Many
Iranians felt they were losing their Islamic identity
and culture.

Intellectuals such as Ali Shariati (d. 1977),
imprisoned by the shah in 1964, and religious
authorities such as Ayatollah Khomeini, forced
into exile by the shah in 1964, gave religious
shape to the political forces aligning in opposi-
tion to the shah. Both Shariati and Khomeini
maintained that Islam must play a revolutionary
role against tyranny, capitalism, corruption, and
Western influence. Khomeini in particular was
speaking as a leading member of the Twelve-Imam
Shii ulama, who believed that they acted as repre-
sentatives of and deputies for the last Shii Imam
(the 12th divinely appointed descendant of the
prophet Muhammad) until his messianic return
from Occultation ( ghayba ) at an undefined time
in the future to eradicate injustice and corruption,
inaugurating an age of universal Islam before Judg-
ment Day. Moreover, the Twelver jurist who was
acknowledged by his juridical peers and the rest
of the Shii community (umma) to be the supreme
authority* was believed to have divine investiture
(tiass) and infallibility ( isma ) in matters of religious
law and everyday life. An ayatollah so recognized
was known as the marjaa al-taqlid, or “source
of imitation. ' Further, Khomeini, in a series of

' Css ^ 366 Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979

declarations issued from his exile in Iraq argued
that the marjaa was not only the chief religious
authority, but also the ideal ruler. He called for the
overthrow of the shahs regime and its replacement
with a theocracy based on the sharia.

The resulting revolution of 1978-1979
involved massive demonstrations in Iran's cities
on major Shii holy days or days of mourning for
“martyrs" killed during the demonstrations. One
of the slogans that echoed through the streets
declared, “Every day is ASHURA, every place is
Karbala," in memory of Imam Husayn's martyr-
dom at Karbala in 680. These strikes and demon-
strations, many of which were organized by local
revolutionary komitch s (committees) and madrasa
students, together with lack of U.S. political
support, forced the ailing shah and his queen to
flee the country on January 15, 1979. Khomeini
returned in triumph from his 15-year exile on
February 1 and was greeted by millions of cheer-
ing Iranians, some thinking that the messianic
age had arrived and others thinking the ayatol-
lah would support the creation of a democratic
government, then step back from the political
arena. Instead, Khomeini moved quickly to cre-
ate an interim government, and Iran was declared
an Islamic republic by national referendum in
March 1979. An Islamic constitution was drafted
by the interim government and passed by another
referendum. It included an article that designated
the chief Shii jurist the supreme leader of the
republic, thus making Khomeinis doctrine of
government of the jurist ( vilayet-i faqih ) a reality.
Khomeini remained both the supreme leader and
marjaa-i taqlid until his death in 1989.

The revolutionary government of the new
Islamic Republic implemented draconian mea-
sures to undo the shahs program of moderniza-
tion, Westernization, and secularization that had
so distressed traditional and sharia-minded Irani-
ans. In its place were reassertions of “traditional"
Islamic gender roles and spheres (public sphere
as male space, and private as female); the resump-
tion of mandatory “modest" dress for women; the

gradual removal of women from professional and
public employment, particularly in the legislature
and judiciary; expansion of the sharia court sys-
tem to all spheres of law (not just family law);
the closure of Western-style educational institu-
tions and programs with the exception of medi-
cine and some of the technical professions, and
reconstitution of Islamic educational institutions
using traditional religious curricula and peda-
gogical methods emphasizing memorization and
recitation. Enforcement of these laws and others
was undertaken by morals police who increas-
ingly intimidated Iranians in the streets and at
home. The Revolutionary Guard, a special armed
force, was created to protect the republic from
enemies foreign and domestic. The new govern-
ment imprisoned, tried, and executed members
of the shahs government. It also turned against
the Peoples Warriors (Mujahidin-i KHALQ), a
rival, left-leaning revolutionary organization that
had recruited members from Iran's middle-class
youth. On November 4, 1979, pro-Khomeini
students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and
took embassy personnel as hostages for more
than a year (1979-80). This event not only helped
Khomeini consolidate his power but also brought
down the then American president, Jimmy Carter,
who lost his rcclection bid in 1980 largely for fail-
ing to resolve the hostage situation.

Although there continue to be hard-line “revo-
lutionaries" in Iran, the social, political, artistic, and
intellectual, as well as religious pendulums showed
signs of swinging back toward more moderate,
reform-minded expressions of the Iranian spirit in
the generation since Khomeini and his supporters
toppled the shah's regime. This trend suffered a set-
back, however, in 2005, when religious hardliners
seeking to keep the spirit of Khomeini's revolution
alive prevailed in national elections.

See also bazaar; constitutionalism; Consti-
tutional Revolution; Gulf Wars; Twelve-Imam
Shiism; Usuli School.

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Iraq 369

evolved rapidly into major new towns: Basra,
Kufa, and Wasit. They were bolstered by an indig-
enous Arab population (mostly Christian) based
in Iraq's older cities and in rural areas. A new
postconquest Iraqi society emerged consisting of
a mixed population of Arabs, Jews, Kurds, Chris-
tians, Zoroastrians, Africans, Indians, and tribal
groups, all subject to Muslim rulers. Iraqi Arabs
and non-Arabs who converted to Islam became
clients of Arab Muslim tribes and clans, gaining
second-class status. Other groups acquired DH/MMf
(protected) status, which allowed them to main-
tain their own communal organization and reli-
gious laws as long as they bowed to the authority
of Muslim government, paid their taxes, and did
not engage in proselytizing. Adherence to ancient
polytheistic forms of religion, already in decline,
virtually came to an end in postconquest Iraq
with loss of political patronage and conversion to
monotheistic religions, especially Islam.

Ruled by governors appointed by the caliphs
in Medina and later by the Umayyad dynasty in
Damascus, Iraq was a major source of wealth for
the early Muslim empire and a gateway to Per-
sia and lands beyond. It had a large, diversified
population and productive agricultural lands and
developed into an important political center. Ali
ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) was able to become the
fourth caliph with the support of Kufa's popula-
tion, and it was near Basra that he defeated rivals
at the Battle of the Camel (656). Ali made Kufa
the capital, but after his assassination there, the
first Umayyad caliph, Muawiya (r. 661-680),
moved it to Damascus. Years later Husayn ibn Ali
sought to rally his fathers old supporters in his
campaign to become the Muslim head of state,
but he and his supporters were massacred on the
way to Kufa at Karbala by Umayyad troops. Early
Shii movements and other anti-Umayyad senti-
ments continued to stir in Iraq and beyond to the
distant plains of Persia until they coalesced into
the Abbasid Revolution, which ended Umayyad
rule in Syria in 750 and brought forth the new
Abbasid Caliphate.

The Abbasids ruled much of Islamdom from
Iraq until the 10th century, when they had to
bow to various regional soldier dynasties who
paid them nominal allegiance. They ruled from
Baghdad, originally a round city founded in 762
by Mansur, the second Abbasid caliph (r. 754-
775), as a royal fortress. It grew rapidly, however,
into a center of medieval urban civilization that
outshone all the cities of the Middle East-Medi-
terranean region in its cultural importance, opu-
lence, and power. Under Abbasid rule, the major
branches of Islamic law and learning flourished in
Iraq, while the Sunni and Shii branches of Islam
crystallized, sufism grew from Iraqi soil through
the contributions of legendary ascetics, teachers,
and visionaries such as al-Hasan AL-BASRI (d. 728),
Rabia al-Adawiyya (d. 801), Maaruf al-Karkhi (d.
ca. 815), al-Muhasibi (d. 857), Mansur al-Hallaj
(d. 922), Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), and
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1 166). Iraq’s cities were
also famous for their poets, philosophers, and
scientists. Even when the Abbasid political power
waned, the intellectual and cultural achievements
that had been realized in Iraq had a lasting impact
that extended far beyond the frontiers of the Mus-
lim Middle East.

The Abbasid era was brought to an end by
the Mongols, nomadic warriors who rode in from
Central Asia and ravaged cities in Persia and Iraq,
finally plundering Baghdad in 1258. Although the
Mongol rulers, known as the Ukhanids, converted
to Islam, they relegated Iraq to provincial status
and divided it into a northern and a southern dis-
trict. While Persia prospered under Mongol rule,
Iraq's urban populations declined, and neglect of
its irrigation systems led to a marked decrease in
its agricultural production. Baghdad was plun-
dered for a second time in 1401 by Tamerlane,
a Mongol warrior king. In the following cen-
tury, the country experienced further political
fragmentation as it fell into the hands of local
rulers — Arabs, Kurds, and Turkomans. During
the 16th and 17th centuries, it became a frontier
between the expansionist projects of the Persian

I raq 371

conflict in terms of loss of life and economic
damage for both countries. Iraq then invaded
Kuwait in 1990 because of a dispute over oil,
precipitating the next major Gulf War. In 1991,
after an extended campaign of aerial bombing
that destroyed much of Iraq's infrastructure, an
international coalition of forces led by the United
States expelled Iraq from Kuwait. Thinking they
might be able to overthrow the government, Shiis
in the south and Kurds in the north revolted. The
coalition powers allowed Iraq's military to quell
the uprisings. However, they forced the govern-
ment to give up its high-grade weapons programs
and stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
A UN-sponsored embargo was also imposed to
gain Iraq's compliance, at great cost to ordinary
Iraqis. U.S. and British warplanes enforced no-fly
zones over the northern and southern parts of the
country and periodically bombed Iraqi military
installations during the 1990s.

EARLY 21ST-CENTURY IRAQ

Saddam Husayn's Baath dictatorship finally fell in
April 2003 when U.S. and British forces invaded
Iraq on the premises that Iraq was stockpiling
weapons of mass destruction and supporting radi-
cal Islamic terrorism. With the fall of Baghdad,
the army was disbanded, Baath Party members
were dismissed from their jobs, and the occupying
powers created an interim government to rule the
country. It was led by a council composed of rep-
resentatives from different sectors of Iraq's popula-
tion. The Arab Shia and the Kurds took advantage
of the situation to maximize their political inter-
ests against those of the Arab Sunnis, who had
controlled the country since the days of Ottoman
rule. The Daawa Party and the Supreme Council
for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI; now called
the Supreme Islamic Council) returned from exile
in Iran, while many Shiis turned to the ulama in
Najaf for guidance. Three religious figures became
particularly prominent at this time — Ayatollah Ali
Sistani (b. 1930), a senior Iranian-born cleric; Abd
al-Aziz al-Hakim (b. 1950), head of SCIRI and a

cleric; and Muqtada al-Sadr (b. 1973), a militant
young cleric and member of the widely beloved
Sadr family. The U.S. -led invasion of 2003, there-
fore, helped give Iraq's Shia a dominant position
in the government. Their position was confirmed
in the January 2005 elections, when a coalition
of Shii parties gained a parliamentary majority,
and the first two prime ministers they appointed
were members of the Daawa Party. Moreover, in
refutation of the previous Baath regime's secular
outlook, the new Iraqi constitution stipulated that
Islam was the national religion and the basis of the
country's laws, although freedom of religion was
also recognized.

Since the U.S. and British occupation began
in 2003, many parts of the country have seen
increasing levels of violence. Indeed, some experts
have observed that Iraq has become afflicted with
at least five wars, often overlapping with each
other. These are the war of Iraqi opposition to
U.S. occupation forces and their allies; the war
between government and Baathist militias; the war
of foreign jihadis affiliated with al-Qaida against
occupation forces and the Shia (who are seen as
infidels); the war between rival Shii militias; and
the border war between Kurdish guerrillas and
Turkey. Iran is also reported to be involved in
these conflicts by providing support for Shii mili-
tias and Shii blocs in the government. According
to some estimates, more than half a million Iraqis
have lost their lives in this violence, and about
4 million have become refugees. Many observ-
ers are pessimistic about the chances for an end
to the violence in the near future. As a solution,
some recommend that the country be partitioned
into three semiautonomous states — Kurdish in
the north, Shii in the south, and Sunni in the
middle.

See also Akhbari School; colonialism; Gulf
States; Ottoman dynasty; Seljuk dynasty; Shiism.

Further reading: Thabit Abdullah, A Short History of
Iraq: From 636 to the Present (London: Pearson/Long-
man, 2003); Hugh Kennedy, When Baghdad Ruled the

^ 372 Isa

World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty
(Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press. 2005); Kanan
Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Yitzhak
Nakash, The Shiis of Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994); Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq
(London: Penguin Books, 1992); Vali Nasr, The Shia
Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2006).

Isa See Jesus.

islah See RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Islam

The name for the second-largest religion in the
world after Christianity, Islam is a word formed
from the Arabic consonants s-l-m. It is related to
the Arabic word for “peace," salam , which is one
of the 99 most beautiful names of God and also
a cognate of the Hebrew word shalom. One of
the names for paradise in Arabic is Dar al-Salam,
House of Peace. Using these consonants to form
the verbal noun islam creates the meaning “to
enter into a state of peace," which is convention-
ally translated into English as “surrender" or
“submission.” The word muslim is an active par-
ticiple based on the same word; hence, a Muslim
is literally “one who enters a state of peace," “one
who surrenders," or “one who submits." Islam,
therefore, is an action that brings two parties
into a peaceful relationship, the one who sur-
renders and the one to whom one surrenders. In
most contexts, it describes a relationship between
humans and one sovereign God, but it can also
describe a relationship between all creation and
the divine creator. According to Islamic teachings,
surrender to God leads to eternal salvation.

Unlike names of other major religions such
as Hinduism and Buddhism, which were coined
by Western scholars in the 18th and 19th centu-

ries, Islam has been used by Muslims as a name
for their own religion since the early centuries of
their history. The term occurs seven times in the
Quran in passages usually dated to the Medinan
period of Muhammad's career (between 622 and
632), when he and his followers increasingly had
to differentiate their religious beliefs and practices
from those associated with others, especially Jews,
Christians, and polytheists. The most well-known
verse where Islam occurs in the Quran is Q 5:3:

Today those who have disbelieved in your reli-
gion [din] are miserable, so do not fear them.

Fear me. Today 1 have perfected your religion
for you, bestowed my grace upon you, and
chosen Islam for you as your religion.

These words were accompanied by com-
mandments concerning dietary laws, hajj rituals,
and relations with people of other religions. They
indicate that toward the end of Muhammad's life,
probably when he performed the farewell pil-
grimage (ca. 632), Islam was being represented
as a set of specific religious practices legislated
by God. These practices placed Muslims in jux-
taposition to those who practiced disbelief, the
kafirs.

The idea of submission to God through out-
ward actions was linked in the Quran not only to
fearing God but also having faith ( iman ). Indeed,
the Arabic words for faith-belief (iman) and
believer (mum in) and related terms occur much
more frequently in the Quran than the words
islam and muslim. Iman alone occurs 44 times, and
the term for believers (muminun-muminin) occurs
179 times. The meanings of these words some-
times overlap in quranic usage, but in the hadith
they become more distinguishable. In the Hadith
of Gabriel, for example, islam was expressly iden-
tified with the Five Pillars (testimony of faith,
prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and hajj), while iman
was identified with belief in God, angels, holy
books, prophets, and Judgment Day. The specifics
of Islam as practice were subsequently developed

^ 374 Islam

Different understandings of Islam arose during
the 18th and 19th centuries as Western scholars
began to study the Middle East using the methods
of Enlightenment rationality. Islam, like other
religions, was studied in the light of the new sci-
ences of history, language, and culture instead of
traditional theology. Critical editions of Arabic
and Persian texts, including the Quran, were
translated and published in modern European
languages. Scholars such as Sylvestre de Sacy (d.
1838), Edward W. Lane (d. 1876), W. Robertson
Smith (d. 1894), lgnaz Goldziher (d. 1921), and
Theodor Noeldcke (d. 1930), who specialized in
these studies, called themselves Orientalists, based
on the belief at the time that the Orient began cast
of Greece in the Near/Middle East. They began to
present their findings in Orientalist journals and
societies in the mid-1800s. One of these organiza-
tions was the American Orientalist Society, which
was founded in 1842 and still publishes a highly
respected scholarly journal. For all the advances
the Orientalists made in the study of Islam and the
Middle East, the objectivity of their research was
colored by different degrees of bias and self-inter-
est. Some looked to the East to explain the origins
of European civilization, while many sought to
demonstrate the superiority of European culture
at the expense of non-European cultures and civi-
lizations. Orientalism also became involved with
actual European colonization of Muslim lands and
was used to help administer colonial territories
from North Africa to India and Indonesia. Conse-
quently, Europeans viewed Islam in various ways:
sometimes as a backward, violent religion; some-
times as an Arab/an Nights fantasy; and sometimes
as a complex and changing product of history and
social life.

Scholars engaged in the scientific study of
religion, having broken free of the restrictions
of the Christian church, no longer were satisfied
with treating Islam as a heretical religion. Orien-
talists began to treat it as a Semitic religion, along
with Judaism, in contrast to Indo-European and
"primitive" religions. Some even renamed Islam

Mohammedanism and called Muslims Moham-
medans. This was done in conformity with the
classification of other religions, such as Chris-
tianity (named after Christ), Buddhism (named
after the Buddha), and Zoroastrianism (named
after the ancient Persian sage Zoroaster). Most
Muslims have rejected Mohammedanism as a
designation for their own religion because they
argue that submission to God is the focus of
their religion, not Muhammad. Islam has also
been classified with Judaism and Christianity as
a monotheistic religion, as a “revealed" religion,
and as one of the “Western" religions. Other
scholars have regarded it as one of the world
religions, which, like Buddhism and Christian-
ity, made a home for itself in many countries and
actively sought converts. More recently, it has
been understood as an Abrahamic religion.

Today, understandings of Islam continue to
be shaped by the interactions, debates, and overt
conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims. The
growing strategic and economic importance of
OIL and the introduction of secular law codes and
ideologies into lands where Islam is the majority
religion during the colonial era and after World
War II have intensified these interactions. Many
of the worlds proven oil reserves are located in
newly independent Muslim countries, with the
mixed blessing of greater per capita incomes but
also more social and political instability. Western-
style secularism has brought great advances in
terms of education and political participation, but
it has also confined religion to the private sphere.
While many Muslims have come to understand
their religion in secular terms, many others have
rejected this understanding as they look to their
religion for solutions to problems and crises fac-
ing their society, politics, and culture in a time of
rapid changes. Slogans such as “Islam is a religion
and a state" and “Islam is the solution" have
gained wide currency in many Muslim countries.
Since the 1970s, when many Muslims started call-
ing for a “return" to Islam after experiencing the
shortcomings of their national governments and

Islamic Society of North America 375

political ideologies, some Western scholars and
many journalists have portrayed Islam as a threat
to the West, often equating it with “fundamental-
ism,” “TERRORISM,” and, most recently, “fascism.”
Arab-Israeli conflicts, the Iranian Revolution
of 1978-79, Gulf Wars, and al-Qaida's attack
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on
September 11, 2001, have only escalated the level
of this sort of rhetoric, which neither advances
knowledge nor facilitates effective national and
international policy making. The anti-Western
rhetoric coming from radical Muslim ideologists
such as Egypt's Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) and their
supporters has also had harmful consequences.

Defining Islam is an undertaking that, to a
significant extent, has occurred in the context of
Muslim and non-Muslim historical interactions,
whether they be framed in terms of believers and
disbelievers, People of the Book and polytheists,
jihadists and crusaders. Easterners and Western-
ers, secularists and thcocrats, or insiders and
outsiders. Islam is what Muslims have made of it,
what non-Muslims have made of it, and what they
have made of it together. There is ample evidence
to show that defining Islam is a highly polarized
and confrontational enterprise involving civiliza-
tional “clashes.” But more careful consideration
shows that this has not always been the case, as
is evident in the pluralistic contexts of medieval
Spain, Cairo, Baghdad, and in various parts of
Africa and Asia. Thoughtful and learned men and
women in these contexts found a common ground
on which to learn about each other, debate issues
of mutual interest and concern, and, above all,
live together. Modern migrations of Muslims to
Europe and the Americas, the reach of the Inter-
net, interreligious dialogue on local and transna-
tional levels, and the increased participation of
Muslim and non-Muslim scholars jointly in the
study of Islam and Muslims promise to ameliorate
and correct the angry and distorted definitions
that have been produced and reproduced in recent
years. The possibility awaits of once again under-
standing Islam on the basis of mutual interests

and shared commitment so that people may face
together challenges that stand before global soci-
ety in the 21st century.

See also Allah; Andalusia; Arabic language

AND LITERATURE; CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM; COLO-
NIALISM; DAR AL-ISLAM AND DAR AL-HARB; DIALOGUE;

Europe; Islamism; Judaism and Islam; kafir; and
the introduction to this volume.

Further reading: Norman Daniel. Islam and the West:
The Making of an Image (Oxford: Oncworld, 1993);
Sachiko Murata and William C. Chittick, The Vision of
Islam (St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 1994); Andrew
Rippin, Defining Islam: A Reader (London: Equinox
Publishing, 2007); Maxime Rodinson, “The Western
Image and Western Studies of Islam.” In The Legacy
of Islam. 2d cd. Edited by Joseph Schacht and C. E.
Bosworth, 9-62 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1974, 9-62); Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1978); Jane I. Smith, An Historical and
Semantic Study of the Term ‘islam ' as Seen in a Sequence of
Quran Commentaries (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press,
1975).

Islamic Society of North America

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is
an association of Muslim organizations and indi-
viduals concerned with social and educational
development, outreach programs, and public rela-
tions in the United States and Canada. It was
formed in 1981, evolving from the Muslim Stu-
dents Association (MSA), in order to serve the
religious and social needs of Muslim graduates
from American colleges and universities. ISNA
serves as an umbrella organization for the MSA
and approximately 300 other alfiliated community
and professional organizations, including the
Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS),
the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engi-
neers (AMSE), the Islamic Medical Association of
North America (1MANA), and the Council of
Islamic Schools in North America (C1SNA). A
diversity of Muslim communities, mosques, and

‘ CtfS3 376 Islamism

other institutions belong to ISNA, varying in size,
membership, ethnicity, and styles of leadership.
Despite this diversity, constituent members are
perceived by local Muslims as representing ISNA.

ISNA headquarters lie in Plainfield, Indi-
ana, in a complex of buildings, which includes
a mosque, library, and offices. It is a notable
example of contemporary Islamic architecture,
designed by Gulzar Haidar and built in 1979
with funds donated by the United Arab Emirates.
The Office of the General Secretariat oversees all
departments and services, is involved in adminis-
tration and management of offices and facilities,
and is accountable to the elected president of
ISNA. Subsidiary units include Conventions and
Conferences, Membership, Community Outreach,
Leadership Development, Youth Coordination,
Community Development, Publications, and the
ISNA Development Foundation.

The executive council and the board of direc-
tors (Majlis al-Shura) arc the two policy-making
bodies recognized within the constitution of
ISNA. The latter body presently consists of 23
members, including representatives elected by the
general body of ISNA and others elected by the
presidents of regional chapters and affiliates. The
society has a membership and support base of
about 400,000 Muslims, with its leadership drawn
predominantly from immigrant communities,
although native-born Americans are increasingly
prominent. Members receive Islamic Horizons , the
bimonthly flagship publication of ISNA edited by
Omer Bin Abdullah, which addresses national and
international affairs. Annually, ISNA hosts a major
convention in addition to numerous regional and
specialty events.

See also Council on American-Islamic Rela-
tions; Muslim Public Affairs Council; United
States.

Gregory Mack

Further reading: Yvonne Y. Haddad, The Muslims of
America (New York: Oxford University Press. 1991);

Islamic Society of North America, 2004 Annual Report
(Plainfield, Ind.: ISNA, 2004); Sulayman S. Nyang,
Islam in the United States of America (Chicago: Kazi
Publications, 1999).

Islamism

Since the 1990s, Islamism has been used by
Western scholars and some journalists as a term
covering a variety of modern Islamic revolution-
ary groups and ideologies that have the goal of
implementing Islamic law (sharia) as the absolute
basis for every aspect of life in majority-Muslim
countries.

Typically, Islamist groups strive to overthrow
governments that are secular or that the Islamists
believe are not properly implementing Islamic
principles. Islamists seek to replace such regimes
with governments they believe would embody
what the Islamists perceive to be genuinely Islamic
ideals. Some examples of many Islamist groups
arc the Muslim Brotherhood, which has chapters
in Egypt and many other countries, Hamas among
the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Hiz-
bullah among Shiites in Lebanon, Jamaat-i Islami
in Pakistan, and al-Qaida globally.

Islamists believe that the Islamic governments
they institute must give their financial and politi-
cal support exclusively to Islamic schools and
universities and ban all other forms of educa-
tion, establish economic systems wholly free of
dependence on Western countries, create societ-
ies where wealth is distributed equitably among
all groups and where the large gaps that exist
between the rich and poor are reduced, and enable
the availability of health care and a wide array of
social services, including orphanages and welfare
services for all individuals in the Islamic state.

Islamists also have the objective of establish-
ing Islamically based moral codes that involve
men and women being required to dress in accor-
dance with the Islamists' interpretation of Islamic
law, the legally enforced separation of men and
women who are not part of the same family, a

Ismaili Shiism 377

complete prohibition of sex outside marriage, and
the banning of alcohol, prostitution, gambling,
and virtually all forms of Western movies, televi-
sion shows, magazines, books, images, and music.
Islamists believe that these cultural products
should be forbidden because they are anti-lslamic
in that they often promote sex outside marriage,
alcohol consumption, selfishness, and material-
ism, all of which contradict Islam.

Islamism is one of the most potent religious,
social, and political forces in the world today and
will have a substantial impact on many aspects of
global politics for the foreseeable future.

See also government, Islamic; jihad move-
ments; Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala; politics and Islam;
Qutb, Sayyid; terrorism.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat:
Myth or Reality ? 3d ed. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999); Fawaz A. Gcrgcs, The Far Enemy: Why
Jihad Went Global (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2003); Bruce B. Lawrence, Shattering the Myth:
Islam beyond Violence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2000); Ali Rahnema, Pioneers of Islamic
Revival (London: Zed Books, 2005); Malisc Ruthven, A
Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America (London:
Granta, 2004).

Ismaili Shiism (Sevener Shiism and Seven-
Imam Shiism)

Shiism is a sectarian form of Islam, and Ismaili Shi-
ism is one of its major subdivisions. It is named
after Ismail (ca. 721-755), the elder son of Jaafar
al-Sadiq (699-765), the sixth Shii Imam. Ismailis
believe that Ismail was the rightful heir to the
imamate after Jaafar's death, instead of Jaafar s son
Musa al-Kazim (ca. 745-799), who is regarded as
the seventh Imam by the Twelve-Imam Shia. The
doctrines and law of the Ismailis are similar to
those of other major Shii sects, but they differ sig-
nificantly in their concepts of authority. They are

also known for the emphasis they place on the dif-
ference between outward (zahir) and inner secret
(batin) meanings of the Quran and other religious
texts and symbols. Because of periods of persecu-
tion in the past, they practiced taqiyya and dis-
guised themselves as Sunnis, Twelve-Imam Shiis,
Sufis, and Hindus. Although precise statistics are
lacking, some estimates say there are about 15
million Ismailis (compared to about 150 million
Twelve-Imam Shiis and about 1.2 billion Muslims
total). Prior to the 19th century, they resided
mainly in the Indian subcontinent, Yemen, Iran,
Afghanistan, and mountainous areas of Central
Asia. They established merchant communities in
East Africa during the 19th century. Now they
can be found in many countries of the world,
including immigrant communities in the United
Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.

Four major forms of Ismaili Shiism developed
during the Middle Ages. They all spread secret
Ismaili teachings by means of missionaries known
as dais who challenged the authority of Sunnis
and Twelve-Imam Shiis. The first form was that ol
the Qaramatians, which appeared in southern Iraq
in the late ninth century and spread to eastern
Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen. It was named after
Hamdan Qaramat, who, together with his aides,
announced that Ismail's son Muhammad was the
promised Mahdi (a messianic savior) who would
abrogate the sharia and rule the world in JUSTICE.
Claiming they acted on his behalf, they recruited
converts from among the Bedouin tribes and orga-
nized small communities that practiced collective
ownership of property. Challenging the legitimacy
of the Abbasid Caliphate in the early 10th century,
they attacked cities in Syria and Iraq as well as
pilgrim caravans. The Qaramatians plundered
Mecca in 930 and carried away the Kaaba’s Black
Stone. The second form of Ismailism was that of
the Fatimids, a movement based in North Africa
that broke with the Qaramatians on the basis of
their claim that Abd Allah (also known as Ubayd
Allah, d. 934), a leading Ismaili missionary, was
related to Muhammad ibn Ismail through a line

Israel 379

of the two groups, are led by the Aga Khan, a
descendant of the Nizari caliph-imams, whom
they call “the Imam of the Age" ( Imam-i zcirnan).
As a result of their need to conceal themselves and
their missionary activities in times of persecution,
Khoja religious language has adapted many terms
and concepts from Sufism and devotional Hindu-
ism ( bhakti ), evident in terms such as pir and guru
(Sufi master), DHIKR and samaran (remembrance
of God), tariqa and sath panth (Sufi order, “true
path"). God was known as Allah and Alakh (a
Sanskritic name for the transcendent God), or as
Rahman (the most merciful) and Ram (an ava-
tar of the Hindu god Vishnu). The key religious
texts for the Khojas are the ginan s, which contain
sacred hymns that arc sung at their religious gath-
erings. The Ismaili Bohras, who are mainly from
the region of Gujarat in India, are led by a man
known as the dai mutlaq (the absolute dai), who
maintains continuous contact with the hidden
imam. Their main headquarters since the 19th
century has been in Mumbai.

Khojas and Bohras are typically involved in
business and finance. They tend to avoid politics,
but they embrace education and scholarship.
The Institute of Ismaili Studies in London was
founded in 1977 by the Aga Khan in order to sup-
port research on Shiism and enhance interfaith
understanding. Both communities have supported
projects relating to the preservation of the Islami-
cate architectural heritage and adapting it to meet
the needs of Muslim communities today. They
have also contributed significantly to humanitar-
ian causes.

See also ahl al-bayt ; Assassins; Bohra; Breth-
ren of Purity; Druze; Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar;
Hinduism and Islam; Sufism; Twelve-Imam Shiism.

Further reading: Ali S. Asani, Ecstasy and Enlighten-
ment: The Ismaili Devotional Literature in South Asia
(London: LB. Taurus. 2002); Jonah Blank. Mullahs on
the Mainframe: Islam and Modernity among the Daudi
Bohras (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2001);
Farhad Daftary, A Short History of the Ismailis (Edin-

burgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998); John Nor-
man Hollister, The Shia of India (1953. Reprint, New
Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1979).

isra and miraj See Night Journey and Ascent.

Israel

The modern country of Israel was created in 1948
as a homeland for the Jewish people. Located on
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, it
covers an area of 8,017 square miles not includ-
ing the occupied territories of Palestine (the
West Bank and Gaza). It is comparable in size
to the state of New Jersey and smaller than Los
Angeles County, California. The western limit of
the country is defined by a coastline that extends
from north to south, with the land sloping east-
ward across a coastal plain up to the Judean Hills.
East of the Judean Hills lie the Jordan Rift Valley
and the Dead Sea. The southern part of the coun-
try is desert, including a narrow corridor leading
down to the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red
Sea. The countries that border Israel arc Lebanon
and Syria to the north, Jordan to the cast, and
Egypt to the west-southwest. The Palestinian
Authority has legal jurisdiction of the West Bank,
a large area between Jerusalem and the Jordan
Valley, and Gaza, a narrow coastal strip on the
Isracli-Egyptian border. Israel also occupies the
Golan Heights, a border area that is claimed by
Syria.

Israels political capital is in the modern city of
Tel Aviv. Although Israel lacks a formal constitu-
tion, it does have a set of Basic Laws that provide
guidelines for governance. Establishing a consti-
tution has been delayed because of disagreements
between Jewish secular and religious parties over
the nature of the nations laws. The country is
ruled by an elective parliamentary democracy led
by a prime minister. Israeli Arab citizens, like its
Jewish citizens, have voting rights and representa-
tion in the parliament, known as the Knesset, but

^ 380 Israel

there is no Palestinian representation from the
occupied territories.

Israels population is estimated to be 7.1 mil-
lion, including nearly 383,000 Israelis living in
West Bank settlements. East Jerusalem, and the
Golan (2008 estimate). It is 76.4 percent Jewish,
mostly native-born, and 23.6 percent non-Jewish,
mostly Arab (2004). Judaism is the religion of the
majority, 16 percent are Muslims, about 2 percent
are Christians, and 1.6 percent are followers of the
Druze religion (2004). Although many of Israel's
citizens are practicing members of their religious
communities, many have secular worldviews. The
combined population of the West Bank and Gaza
is approximately 3.3 million (2004 estimate).
Islam is the religion of most citizens of the Pales-
tinian Authority: 90.1 percent in the West Bank
and 98.7 percent in Gaza (2007 estimate). Most
are Sunni Muslims historically affiliated with
the Hanafi Legal School. The size of the Arab
Christian population has been declining steadily
since the 1967 Arab-Isracli War. They make up
less than 10 percent of the population in the
West Bank and Gaza and belong to a number of
different denominations, including Greek, Syrian
and Armenian Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman
Catholic, and Protestant.

The land where modern Israel is now located
was the setting for many of the stories and events
related in the Bible. It lies at a major crossroads
for the peoples of the Mediterranean region, the
Nile Valley, Arabia, and beyond. The ancient Isra-
elites were but one of several different groups that
lived there. They established kingdoms during
the first half of the first millennium B.c.E. known
as Samaria and Judah. The former, the Northern
Kingdom, was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in
721 B.C.E. Judah (later Judea), the Southern King-
dom, was brought to an end by the Babylonian
Empire in 586 B.c.E. The Babylonians took Judah's
rulers into exile in Mesopotamia and destroyed
the temple in Jerusalem. It was after this time that
many of the books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Tes-
tament) were compiled. The religion of Judaism

is also said to have appeared in this period, when
it replaced ancient Israelite religion. Cyrus II (r.
539-530 B.c.E.), Achaemenid emperor of Persia,
defeated the Babylonians and allowed the captive
Jews to return home. He also gave them permis-
sion to rebuild the Second Temple in Jerusalem. In
the following centuries, the region became either
a province or client of several powerful empires,
including those of Alexander the Great and his
successors (333-67 b.c.e), Rome (67 b.c.e- 330
C.E.), and Byzantium, the continuation of the
Roman Empire in the East (330-640).

Byzantine control over the province of Pales-
tine came to an end when Arab Muslim armies
defeated the Byzantines in a series of battles
between 632 and 637. Taking greater Palestine
and Syria, where there were several large Arab
tribal confederations, had been one of Muham-
mad's top priorities, but it was not until the reign
of the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (r. 634-644)
that the Muslim conquest occurred. In 638,
he went to Jerusalem personally to accept the
peaceful surrender of the city. Historical sources
indicate that the new Muslim rulers did not
encounter serious opposition, for the local popu-
lace and the regions economy prospered. Jews
were able to move back to Jerusalem after having
been previously banned and restricted to living
in the Galilee by the Romans and Byzantines.
Both the regions Christian majority and the Jews
were obliged to accept dh/mm/ (protected) status,
which granted them legal rights under Muslim
law as long as they paid taxes and did not revolt,
slander the Islamic religion, or attempt to convert
Muslims.

Erom the Quran, Muslims knew Israel more
as a people rather than a land or kingdom. Jacob
was a biblical figure who was also known as
Israel. He is mentioned once in the Quran by
this name. His offspring, the children of Israel,
are mentioned 42 times as recipients of the
Torah of Moses. Kings David and Solomon are
both mentioned, but more as prophets than as
rulers of a holy land. Later Quran commentaries

^ 382 Israel

known as Zionism, which aspired to establish a
homeland for diaspora Jews in Palestine. It was
based partly on the nationalist movements that
were sweeping Europe during the 19th century,
and it was partly a reaction against increasing
anti-Semitism there. Although modern Zionism
was mainly secular, it was also mindful of the bib-
lical view that Canaan (an ancient name for Israel)
had been promised to the Jews as descendants of
Abraham (Gen. 17).

During World War I, Palestine was the main
scene of the Arab Revolt, an armed insurgency
of Arab forces, supported by the British, against
Ottoman troops. Arabs hoped to be able to gov-
ern themselves after the war. Instead, with the
defeat of Germany and the breakup of the Otto-
man Empire in 1918, the British took control of
Palestine as a mandate territory, in accordance
with the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916
and approval of the League of Nations. In 1917,
the British Foreign Office issued the Balfour
Declaration, which stated it “viewed with favour
the establishment in Palestine of a national
home for the Jewish people” and affirmed “that
nothing shall be done which may prejudice the
civil and religious rights of existing non-Jew-
ish communities in Palestine. ” Until they gave
up their mandate in 1948, the British tried
unsuccessfully to mediate between these two
competing and increasingly hostile nationalist
movements, one Jewish, one Arab Palestinian.
Jewish immigration from Europe increased in
the 1930s, as many fled from Nazi Germany.
A key figure for the Palestinian cause was Hajj
Amin al-Husayni (d. 1974), the mufti of Jerusa-
lem who organized strikes and attacks against
British troops and Jewish settlers, culminating
in the Arab Revolt of 1936-39. He was unable,
however, to unify the different factions involved
on the Palestinian side of the struggle. On
the side of the Zionists, David Ben Gurion (d.
1973), who had immigrated to Palestine from
Poland in 1906, emerged as a prominent and
effective political leader.

The end of the British mandate precipitated
an all-out Arab-lsraeli war in 1948, the first of
several such major regional conflicts. When the
United Nations approved a resolution for creat-
ing two states (General Assembly Resolution
181) in 1947, one for Jews and one for Arabs,
Jewish leaders declared their support for it,
while Palestinian Arabs, backed by other Arab
states, rejected it. When the last British troops
left in 1948, Israel declared its independence and
was recognized by the Soviet Union, the United
States, and other countries. Arab armies consist-
ing of troops from the Arab League states of
Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq were defeated in
the ensuing war. Approximately 800,000 Pales-
tinians fled or were driven from their homes and
forced to live in refugee camps in Syria, Jordan,
Lebanon, and Egypt. Their abandoned property
was seized by the victorious Israelis. Israeli Jews
remember this as their war of independence, but
Arabs call it “the catastrophe" ( al-nakba ). Once
Israel became independent, Jewish immigration
from abroad increased, including survivors of the
Nazi death camps in Europe. Middle Eastern Jews
also immigrated to Israel after experiencing anti-
Jcwish discrimination and violence in several
newly independent Arab countries during the
1930s. Israel, for its part, encouraged this immi-
gration, which helped ensure that Jews became
the majority population.

Israel has had several more wars with Palestin-
ians and Arab neighbors since that time. The sec-
ond Arab-lsraeli war, known as the Six-Day War,
occurred in 1967. It resulted in the shattering
defeat of Arab armies and occupation of the West
Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and Egypt's Sinai Pen-
insula. More Palestinian refugees were created,
and the secular Palestine Liberation Organiza-
tion (PLO) led by Yasir Arafat (d. 2004) became
internationally recognized as the embodiment of
the Palestinian nationalist cause. Another major
war was the Yom Kippur/October War of 1973,
which led in 1978 to a peace agreement with
Egypt and return of the Sinai to that country. The

Istanbul 383

United States became Israel's greatest ally dur-
ing this time, providing it with large amounts of
foreign aid and weaponry as well as diplomatic
backing in the UN and elsewhere.

In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to eliminate
Palestinian guerrilla bases and then occupied
southern Lebanon until it withdrew its forces
in 2000. Another form of conflict occurred in
1987, when Palestinian civilians living in the
West Bank and Gaza protested against the Israeli
occupation. This “uprising,'* known as the First
Intifada, ended in 1993 with the signing of the
Oslo Accords by Yitzhak Rabin (d. 1995), the
Israeli prime minister, and Yasir Arafat, chair-
man of the PLO. Both men received the Nobel
Peace Prize for this agreement. A second upris-
ing, known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, erupted in
2000 as a consequence of defects in the Oslo
Accords, expansion of Israeli settlements on the
West Bank, and deteriorating relations between
Palestinians and Israelis. It ended with an uneasy
truce in 2006.

Although religion was not the primary cause
for these conflicts, religious politics and radical-
ism increased with the failure to find a lasting
solution for the basic issue of Palestinian state-
hood. During the First Intifada, the radical Islamic
movement Hamas emerged in Gaza to challenge
both the Israelis and the PLO leadership. It sought
to liberate Palestine and establish an Islamic
government, asserting that the land was a perma-
nent Islamic bequest (waqf) that could never be
transferred to non-Muslims. Since 1987, Hamas
has achieved widespread support among the Pal-
estinians and won the 2006 Palestinian legislative
elections. Israels 1982 invasion and occupation of
southern Lebanon gave rise to Hizbullah, a Shii
militant organization with close ties to Iran. It
engaged in an intense but short border war with
Israel in the summer of 2006. Israel, for its part,
witnessed the rise of radical Zionist groups and
parties that wanted to expand Israeli settlements
in the West Bank and Gaza and opposed making
any territorial concessions as part of any Israeli-

Palcstinian peace agreement. In 1995, a member
of one of these groups assassinated Israeli prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin at a Tel Aviv peace rally
because of the latters signing of the Oslo Accords.
The U.S.-led “war on terror" and its occupation
of Iraq have further complicated efforts to peace-
fully resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and
increased religious radicalism and terror strikes
in the region. Christian Zionists in the United
States have also become engaged in the politics of
war and peace in the Middle East and have shown
strong support for Israel and right-wing Israeli
Zionist parties.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Christianity
and Islam; colonialism; Crusades; Judaism and
Islam; terrorism.

Further reading: Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine,
634-1099 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992); Walter Laquer and Barry Rubin, The Israel- Arab
Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Con-
flict. 6th ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2001); Ber-
nard Reich, A Brief History of Israel (New York: Facts
On File, 2004); Paul Wheatley, The Places Where Men
Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, 7th through the
1 0th Centuries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2001), 112-126.

Istanbul (Constantinople)

The present-day city of Istanbul is the largest in
Turkey and once was the capital of both the Byz-
antine and Ottoman Empires. It straddles both
sides of the Bosporus, the narrow strait connect-
ing the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea and from
there to the Mediterranean. It separates Europe
from Asia, thus making Istanbul the only city in
the world to sit astride two continents. Its unique
position has also given the city strategic impor-
tance throughout history.

The city was founded in the seventh cen-
tury b.c.e. as Byzantium and, after falling under
Roman rule, eventually became the capital of the
Roman Empire under Constantine the Great in

Istanbul 385

Further reading: Zeynep Celik, The Remaking of Istan-
bul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993);
John Freely, Istanbul the Imperial City (London: Viking.

1996); Bernard Lewis, Istanbul and the Civilization of
the Ottoman Empire (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1963); Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the
City (New York: Vintage, 2006).

Jaafar al-Sadiq (ca. 699-765) early Shii
scholar recognized as the sixth Imam by Ismaili and
Twelve-Imam Shi is

Abu Abd Allah Jaafar ibn Muhammad, also known
as Jaafar al-Sadiq, was born in the holy city of
Medina and was the son of the fifth Shii Imam,
Muhammad al-Baqir (676-ca. 743). Both are
held to be among the ahl al-bayt , descendants
of the prophet Muhammad through Ali ibn Abi
Talib (d. 661) and his wife Fatima. Umm Farwa,
his mother, was a descendant of Abu Bakr (d.
634), Muhammad's close companion and the first
caliph. According to traditional accounts, Jaafar
performed the hajj with his father and accompa-
nied him when he was summoned to Damascus
by the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik
(r. 723-743) for questioning. Some accounts state
that Hisham later poisoned Muhammad al-Baqir,
who was buried in Medina. Jaafar succeeded his
father as Imam and has been credited for estab-
lishing the doctrine of nass (designation of an
imam by God or a previous imam), theoretically
reducing disputes over succession to the imamate
by limiting the number of claimants. He lived at
a time when there was a great struggle occurring
among Muslim factions contending for leader-
ship in the UMMA. Indeed, he witnessed both the

violent end of the Umayyad Caliphate at the hands
of the Abbasids in the mid-eighth century and the
Abbasid suppression of its former Shii allies in the
aftermath of their victory over the Umayyads. He
was also well aware of factional disputes among
the Shia themselves over the question of leader-
ship. When the Abbasids came to power, Jaafar
was interrogated and imprisoned as a potential
threat to their rule. It is not surprising, therefore,
to learn that he endorsed practicing tac/iyya (pious
dissimulation) to avoid persecution at the hands
of Sunni rulers. He was also credited with having
set forth the doctrine of the Imams' infallibility
(isma) because of their esoteric knowledge.

The Shia have regarded Jaafar as one of the
leading imams, but he has been cited as an author-
ity in many different strands of Islamic learning
and tradition. He was remembered as a master
teacher of hadith among both Sunnis and Shiis.
He was famous for being a hadith transmitter in
both branches of the Muslim community, and sev-
eral prominent Muslim scholars were said to have
studied with him, including Abu Hanifa (d. 767)
and Malik ibn Anas (d. 793). These were the epon-
ymous founders of the Sunni Hanafi and Maliki
Legal Schools. Likewise, Jaafar was remembered
as the eponymous founder of the Jaafari Legal

386

Jahiliyya 387

School of the Shia. In addition to law, he was also
embraced as an authority in the fields of THEOLOGY,
Arabic grammar, alchemy, and fortune telling.
Sufis included him in their genealogies of spiritual
authority, and an early Quran commentary with
mystical overtones has been ascribed to him.

According to Shii tradition, Jaafar, like his
father, was poisoned to death by an enemy; in
Jaa far’s case it was the caliph Mansur (r. 754-775).
Jaafar was buried in Medinas Baqi Cemetery,
and his tomb was an object of pilgrimage until
destroyed by the Wahhabis centuries later. After
his death, there was a dispute among Shii fac-
tions over succession to the imamate. Those who
claimed that the seventh Imam was his eldest son,
Ismail (d. 760), eventually became the Ismaili
branch of SHIISM. Those who supported the can-
didacy of Jaafar's son Musa al-Kazim (d. 799) and
his heirs later became the Twelve-Imam branch
of Shiism. One Shii faction, no longer extant,
claimed at the time that Jaafar was not really dead,
but that he had gone into a state of concealment
(CHAYBa) and would return as the Mahcli , or Mus-
lim messiah. This claim was attributed to other
imams in both branches of Shii tradition.

See also Abbasid Caliphate; authority; imam;
Ismaili Shiism; Twelve-Imam Shiism.

Further reading: Marshall G. Hodgson. **How Did the
Early Shia Become Sectarian?” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 75 (1955): 1-13; Moojan Momen, An
Introduction to Shii Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press. 1985), 37-39, 154-156; Michael
Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, M iraj, Poetic,
and Theological Writings (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press.
1996), 75-88; Liyakat M. Takim, The Heirs of the
Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shiite Islam
(Albany: State University of New York Press. 2006).

Jahiliyya (Arabic: era of ignorance,
barbarism)

The state of affairs in Arabia and much of the rest
of the world before the rise of Islam in the sev-

enth century is known to Islamic tradition as the
Jahiliyya era, or the time of ignorance. Beginning
in the 13th century, some Muslims came to apply
this term to non-Muslims of later times.

The term has often been used to connote the
pagan polytheism of the Arabian Peninsula before
the revelation of the Quran. Muslims view this
period with particular disdain because polythe-
ism, or assigning partners to God (shirk), is
viewed as absolutely contradictory to Islam’s own
strict monotheism (tawhid). They believe that
Islam brought humanity true and ultimate knowl-
edge through the Quran and HADITH, founded on
the recognition that there is one God and Muham-
mad is his prophet. In contrast, Muslims associate
Jahiliyya with total spiritual darkness.

A significant figure who developed the Muslim
understanding of the term Jahiliyya was the 1 3 th-
an d 14th-century Muslim intellectual Taqi al-Din
Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). As the Mongol
armies swept westward toward the central lands
of Islam, including Syria and Egypt, and as they
became Sunni Muslims over time, many people
living in those and other central lands faced a
dilemma. If the Muslims living in these regions
fought the Mongols, they would have been in
violation of the sharia's injunctions forbidding
Muslims from killing each other. If those Muslims
did not engage in battle against the Mongols, their
regions would be conquered by this foreign group.
Supporting the Mamluk rulers of Egypt and Syria
against the Mongols, Ibn Taymiyya wrote that any
professed Sunni Muslim ceases to be one — and
automatically becomes part of jahili culture —
when he, among other things, breaks major
Islamic injunctions concerning life, limb, and
property. For Ibn Taymiyya, their offensive war
against other Muslims clearly made the Mongols
part of jahili culture, and as such the Muslims of
Syria and Egypt were justified — even obliged — to
wage war against them, even though they may
have adhered to other aspects of the sharia.

In the 20th century, certain Islamists, such as
Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), a Muslim intellectual who

388 Jamaat-i Islami

played a leading role in Egypt’s Muslim Brother-
hood, adapted Ibn Taymiyya’s ideas and viewed
all modern secular governments (among other
non-Muslim entities) as part of jahili culture
and as legitimate targets for militant attacks. The
Jihad Group of Egypt, under the leadership of
Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj (d. ca. 1981),
drew explicitly on Ibn Taymiyya’s writings to jus-
tify the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat
( d. 1981), whom they accused of not being a true
Muslim, like the Mongols of the past.

See also Arabian religion, pre-Islamic; idola-
try; jihad.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: G. R. Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry
and the Emergence oj Islam: From Polemic to History
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Sayyid
Qutb, Milestones (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2003);
Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and
Modern Politics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1990).

Jamaat-i Islami (Urdu: Islamic Group)

The Jamaat-i Islami is an Islamic political party in
Pakistan founded in 1941 by Abu al-Ala Mawdudi
(1903-79), the most widely influential Muslim
thinker of South Asia in the 20th century. It is
an ideological movement that has aimed to cre-
ate an Islamic state in which all aspects of social
and political life would be governed according to
Islamic standards and law. The Jamaat initially
rejected the Pakistan independence movement
and remained apart from political participation,
believing that Islam is a universal system not to be
encompassed by the boundaries of a nation-state
and choosing to focus instead on developing its
ideological support base. But upon the creation
of Pakistan in 1947 based on religious identity,
but not religious law, the Jamaat mobilized into
a political party to work toward making Pakistan
an ideal Islamic state founded on an Islamic con-
stitution based on the Quran and Sunna and a

legal system based on SHARIA, mirroring the socio-
religious system as established by Muhammad (d.
632) and the first four caliphs.

The Jamaat believes in peaceful political prog-
ress toward an Islamic state through democratic
process and works toward the development of
a large Islamic base in society, attempting to
effect social change through state institutions.
It believes that technological modernization is
required for the development of Islamic society
but is opposed to what it views as Western-style
modernization with its marginalization of religion
and its moral corruption evident in human rights,
women's advancement outside the home, birth
control, and bank interest. Like its founder, most
of the Jamaats members and leaders are educated
laymen rather than trained ULAMA, and their focus
is often more on political concerns than religious
ones. The Jamaat is supported by an elected coun-
cil, has varying levels of membership, and is led
by a president who is elected by party members
for a five-year term. Alongside the ulama of Paki-
stan, the Jamaat participated in the violent anti-
Ahmadi movement in 1933, which resulted in the
declaration of Pakistan’s Ahmadiyya community as
a non-Muslim minority. It has survived as a politi-
cal party during Pakistan's periods of martial law
and political turbulence by operating as a religious
organization. Outside of Pakistan, the Jamaat has
branches in India, Kashmir, and Bangladesh, and
it publishes a monthly Urdu-language magazine
out of Lahore called the Tarjuman al-Quran. Its
active student wing is called the Islami Jamiat-i
Talaba (Islamic Association of Students, IJT). The
Jamaat had associations with the Islamic revolu-
tionary government in Iran and is known to have
ties to Saudi Arabia.

See also democracy; government, Islamic;
Islamism; renewal and reform movements.

Megan Adamson Sijapati

Further reading: Mumtaz Ahmad, “Islamic Funda-
mentalism in South Asia: The Jamaat-i-Islami and
the Tablighi Jamaat of South Asia.” In Fundamental-

Jamiyyat al-Ulama-i Islam 389

isms Observed, edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott
Appleby, 457-531 (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1991); Kalim Bahadur, The Jamaat-i-Islami of
Pakistan: Political Thought and Political Action (New
Delhi: Chetana Publications. 1977); Seyyed Vali Reza
Nasr. Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

jami See mosque.

Jamiyyat al-Ulama-i Hind (Association
of Indian Ulama, also spelled Jamiyatul
Ulama-i Hind; acronym: JUH)

Founded in 1919 by a group of religious scholars
(ulama) under the leadership of the respected
Deobandi scholar Mawlana Mahmud Hasan
(1851-1920), the JUH sought to unify India's
Muslim population and to solidify its Muslim
scholars. It was composed of ulama from several
major centers of Islamic learning in India, espe-
cially the Dar-ul Ulum Deoband, but also Farangi
Mahal and Nadwat ul-Ulama of Lucknow, India.

Extremely active in the fight for India's inde-
pendence from British rule, the JUH was formed
in the 1920s at the height of the Khilafat Move-
ment, which sought to reestablish the Ottoman
caliphate. This movement was also supported by
Mohandas K. Gandhi (d. 1948) and the Indian
National Congress (INC). The JUH advocated
abstaining from engaging in political activism in
favor of the pan-lslamic view that the religion
could not be confined to or defined by a par-
ticular nation-state. Nonetheless, the JUH joined
with the INC in order to press for independence
from the British, under whom religious freedom
was severely curtailed. The majority of the JUH
ulama likewise looked askance at the Mus-
lim League's secular, modernist leadership and
opposed their efforts to establish a Muslim state.
Under the charismatic leadership of Mawlana
Hussain Ahmad Madani (d. 1957) in the 1930s,
the agenda of the JUH focused on cultural and

religious issues such as strong advocacy of the
Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act of 1939,
which set up a separate legal code that provided
for Muslim divorce to be adjudicated according
to sharia principles. Other Indian Muslim lead-
ers, such as Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) and Abu
al-Ala Mawdudi (d. 1979), criticized Madani and
the JUH for their collaboration with the Hindu-
dominated INC.

The JUH saw themselves as working on behalf
of autonomy for Muslims within the greater Indian
polity, not outside of it. As Madani put it, Islam
was one millat (religion) within the Indian qawm
(nation). However, many Indian ulama found this
position increasingly untenable. In 1945, there
was a schism that led to the establishment of the
Jamiyatul al-Ulama-i Islam in order to accommo-
date those with separatist views. Since 1947, the
JUH has focused on religious and cultural issues
and has remained aloof from politics.

Sec also All-India Muslim League; colonial-
ism; secularism.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: Yohanan Friedmann, “The Attitude
of the Jamiyyat-i Ulama-i Hind to the Indian National
Movement and the Establishment of Pakistan." Asian
and African Studies 7 (1971): 157-183; Muhammad
Qasim Zaman. The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Cus-
todians of Change (Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University
Press. 2002).

Jamiyyat al-Ulama-i Islam (Association of
the Ulama of Islam, also spelled Jamiyatul
Ulama-i Islam, acronym: JUI)

The JUI broke off from the Jamiyyat al-Ulama-i
Hind (JUH), a n association of Deobandi ulama,
in 1945 over the JUH's support for the Hindu-
dominated Indian National Congress and their
opposition to the call for the creation of a
separate Muslim state, Pakistan. There are cur-
rently Pakistani and Bangladeshi branches of this

390 Jammu and Kashmir

group, including several subgroups under differ-
ent leadership. Since the establishment of these
Muslim states, the JUI has been active as a politi-
cal party and has pressed for the implementation
of the sharia. In Pakistan, the JUI was active in
the anti-AHMADlYYA riots in 1953 and 1974 and
anti-Shia agitations. Part of the JUFs agenda has
also been to establish a “pure" Islam in Pakistan.
In particular, the JUI has sought to eliminate the
worship of saints and other practices they regard
as un-Islamic.

As a political party, the JUI held political con-
trol of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP)
in the 1970's under the leadership of Maulana
Mufti Mahmud (1919-80), who was chief min-
ister from 1971 to 1973. In addition to pursuing
populist policies regarding land reform, public
education, and health care, during this period
several “Islamic" laws were instituted and remain,
including the prohibition of alcohol, a reform of
inheritance laws, and the mandatory observance
of Ramadan. The JUI opposed the regimes of Zul-
fiqar Ali Bhutto (r. 1973-77) and Benazir Bhutto
(r. 1988-90, 1993-96), gave lukewarm support
to Nawaz Sharif (r. 1990-93, 1997-99), and has
been an active critic of the regime of Pervcz Mush-
arraf (r. 1999-2008). Currently, under the leader-
ship of Mahmuds son Fazlur Rahman, the JUI is
again influential as part of the Muttahida Majlis-i
Amal (MMA) coalition of religious parties that
came to power in the NWFP in 2002. The JUI is
also popular in Baluchistan.

Sec also Islamism; politics and Islam; Shiism.

Anna Bigelow

Further reading: Jamal Malik. Colonialization of Islam:
Dissolution of Traditional Institutions in Pakistan, 2d cd.
(New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1998); Muhammad
Qasim Zaman. The Ularna in Contemporary Islam: Cus-
todians of Change (Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2002).

Jammu and Kashmir Sec Kashmir.

Jannisary (Turkish yeniferi: new troops)

The elite standing army corps of the Otto-
man Empire, the Janissaries originated in the
14th century as a corps of soldiers made up
of Christian prisoners of war. They developed
into a regular standing infantry through the
institution known as dcv§invc — the levying of
boys from the Christian peoples conquered by
the Ottomans. The recruits were converted to
Islam, taught the Turkish language, and trained
for specific functions in the Ottoman palace and
military. Though they received regular salaries,
the Janissaries were considered slaves, and other
Muslims were thus excluded from their ranks.
The Janissaries were subject to strict discipline
and were forbidden to marry. Their organization
was steeped in tradition, and each regiment was
independent, with its own symbol and flag. Their
loyalty to the regiment and to the sultan gave
them strength in battle, making them an effec-
tive force in Ottoman conquests. In peacetime,
they served important functions in Ottoman
CITIES, including fire-fighting, maintaining law
and order, and ensuring fair trade. They became
a force in internal politics known for revolting
against and overthrowing viziers and even sul-
tans, symbolically announcing their mutinies
by overturning their large soup cauldrons. The
Janissaries had an affiliation with the Bektashi
Sufi Order, whose babas (spiritual leaders)
served as chaplains to the troops.

Because of their regular salary and the privi-
leges and distinctions they received, Muslims
began to seek admission to the Janissary corps
through patronage and bribery. This led to a
decline of discipline, which worsened when
Janissaries were allowed to have outside careers
while still garnering their wages. By the 18th
century, the Janissaries were widely seen as a
nuisance, and they resisted attempts at reform.
Finally, when Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808-39)
created a new regular corps in 1826, the ensuing
mutiny was put down, and the Janissaries were
destroyed.

Jerusalem 391

See also Christianity and Islam; conversion;
Europe; Ottoman dynasty; slavery; Tanzimat.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Geoffrey Goodwin, The Janissaries
(London: Saqi Books, 1994); David Nicolle and Christa
Hook, The Janissaries (Oxford: Osprey, 1995)

Jerusalem (known in Arabic as al-Quds
[Holy] and Bayt al-Maqdis [House of the
Holy])

Jerusalem is a holy city for followers of the three
Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam. For each, however, it is holy for different
reasons. For Jews, it is the location of Mount Zion,
the center of the world where the ancient Israelite
Temple of Solomon once stood. For Christians, it is
where Jesus convened the Last Supper with his dis-
ciples and where he endured the Passion, was cru-
cified, died, resurrected, and ascended to heaven.
For Muslims, it is where Muhammad prayed and
entered into the heavens on his Night Journey
and Ascent. Most Muslims consider it to be Islam's
third most sacred city after Mecca and Medina,
although they also recognize it is not exclusive to
them alone as the other two cities are. Through the
centuries, devout members of all three religions
have lived and journeyed to Jerusalem on pilgrim-
age. They go to visit and worship at places that are
held sacred by each of these religions. The Western
Wall of the ancient Temple is a major focus of Jew-
ish prayer and piety. For Christians, its most holy
places are the Church of the Resurrection (also
called the Church of the Holy Sepulcher) and the
Mount of Olives, where they believe Jesus ascended
to heaven. Muslims visit and pray at the Aqsa
Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in the Haram
al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary, known as the Temple
Mount to Jews and Christians). All three religions
have traditions stating that Jerusalem will be the
focal point of cataclysmic events that will signal the
endtimes and the arrival of Judgment Day.

Aerial view of Jerusalem’s Old City showing the Dome
of the Rock and the Haram al-Sharif (top), and the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher (the domed structure at
the bottom) (National Geographic Magazine)

PRE-ISLAMIC JERUSALEM

Jerusalem is among the oldest cities in the world.
Archaeological evidence suggests human settle-
ment in its environs as early as the fourth mil-
lennium B.c.E. Its early name, Rushalimum (or
Urusalim), appears in ancient Egyptian and Syrian
texts dated to the 19th and 14th centuries B.c.E.
This name may have meant "foundation of the
god Salim"; only much later, after the biblical
period, was its name interpreted to mean “City of
Peace." Between 2000 and 1500 B.C.E., Jerusalem
developed into a walled city located on the hill of

Jerusalem 393

the Middle East in the fourth century B.C.E., Jeru-
salem fell into the hands of his general Seleucus
I Nicator (r. 312-281 B.C.E.) and his heirs, the
Seleucids. Under the influence of Hellenistic
culture, the city was embellished with a stadium
and gymnasium, and worship of Hellenistic gods
was introduced in the Temple. Jewish rule was
restored by the Hasmoneans (or Maccabees)
around 166 B.C.E. The last Hasmoneans were
subjugated by Rome about a century later in 63
B.C.E., and Jerusalem became part of the Roman
Empire, governed by Romes clients, the Herodian
Dynasty (63 b.c.e-50 c.e.). Herod the Great (r.
40 b.c.e.— 4 B.C.E.), under the patronage of Julius
Caesar and other prominent Romans, conducted
major building projects in Jerusalem. He rebuilt
the Temple, enlarged the Temple Mount, and
enhanced the city's fortifications. Herod's succes-
sors ruled Judaea during the ministries of Jesus
and his disciples and were implicated in their per-
secution. The Hcllcnization of the city continued
during this time, as reflected in its theater, temples
to Greco-Roman deities, and luxurious homes for
the wealthy on the hillsides west of the Temple
Mount. Tensions among Jews opposed to Helle-
nization and Roman rule erupted into an outright
revolt in 66 C.E., resulting in the destruction of
the Second Temple, the slaughter of the civilian
population, and the devastation of much of the
city in 70. Jewish religious life found fertile soil
elsewhere in Palestine, the cast Mediterranean
region, and Mesopotamia. Jesus' followers, who
came to be known as Christians, followed their
Jewish brethren into towns and cities of Palestine
and the east Mediterranean region.

During the second century, another Jewish
uprising, known as the Bar-Kochba Revolt, broke
out when the Romans decided to build a temple
to Jupiter on the Temple Mount in 130. The revolt
was violently crushed, and Jews were banned from
living in the city. Jerusalem was transformed into a
Roman garrison named Aelia Capitolina after the
family of the emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138) and
the Temple Mount became a place of desolation.

The city continued to languish under its Roman
overlords until the emperor Constantine (r. 306-
337) converted to Christianity and, with the help
of his mother Helena, gave new life to it. Helena
identified the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial,
and resurrection on Golgotha, the hill situated
west of the Temple Mount. She was authorized
by her son to construct a church there to house
the relic of the True Cross. This was the Church
of the Resurrection (or Holy Sepulcher). She also
had basilicas built on the Mount of Olives and
in Bethlehem. During the reign of the emperor
Justinian (r. 527-365) the “new” (Nca) Church
of the Theotokos was built near the Church of
the Resurrection in honor of Mary as the “mother
of God.” Jerusalem and environs then became a
major focus of early Christian pilgrimage activity.
By the late sixth century, the city had at least 17
churches. It was one of the major patriarchates
in the Byzantine Empire, where Christianity had
become the religion of state. At about the same
time, though often excluded from the city by
Christian authorities, Jews were assembling tradi-
tions (found in the Talmud and rabbinic midrash)
about the sacredness of the Temple Mount and its
Stone of Foundation, identifying it as the loca-
tion of the biblical creation account, the place
from underneath which the floodwatcrs came in
the time of Noah, the location of Abrahams near-
sacrifice of his son Isaac, and where the Messiah
would stand to proclaim the new messianic age.

During the first half of the seventh century,
Jerusalem underwent ongoing political and reli-
gious turbulence. Sassanian armies invaded the
region from Persia, defeating Byzantine forces.
They captured Jerusalem in 614, which led to
considerable loss of life and destruction in the
city, and they carried the relic of the True Cross
back to their capital, Ctesiphon, in Mesopotamia.
Persians left the city temporarily in the hands of
the Jews, who anticipated the onset of a new age.
Meanwhile, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (r.
610-641) launched a counterattack against the
Persians, finally returning to Jerusalem in triumph

394 Jerusalem

with the True Cross in 629. Jews were accused of
conspiring with the Persians and implicated in the
killing of Christians and destruction of churches.
Once again, Christian authorities banned them
from the city. They were prohibited from public
worship, and in 634 Heraclius ordered that all the
Jews in his empire be baptized.

ISLAMICATE JERUSALEM

Arabs appear to have lived in Jerusalem in the
first century, for they arc mentioned in the New
Testaments Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:5-11).
There is also evidence that there were Christian
Arabs in the city when it was ruled by the Byz-
antine Empire. Jerusalem was not mentioned by
name in the Quran, but several verses have been
understood by later Muslim commentators as
references to it. The most important of these was
the “farthest mosque" ( al-masjid cil-aqsa) men-
tioned in Q 17:1, which was identified in Islamic
commentaries with the place where Muhammad
prayed in Jerusalem on his miraculous Night
Journey. The Aqsa Mosque in the Noble Sanctuary
( al-haram al-sharif) y or Temple Mount platform,
commemorated this event. The other verse most
commonly associated with Jerusalem is Q 2:142-
153, where commentators maintain that Muham-
mad was commanded to face toward the QIBLA
of Mecca, instead of Jerusalem, the first qibla of
the Muslims of Medina. Later texts elaborated on
both Muhammad's Night Journey and the chang-
ing of the qibla. Indeed, a distinct literary genre
concerned with the praiseworthy qualities ( fadail )
ol Jerusalem would arise around the time of the
Crusades (12th to 13th century) that sought to
place the city on a par with Mecca and Medina
and identify it as the site where important events
were expected to occur on Judgment Day.

Muslim political control over Jerusalem was
established in 638, when Arab armies accepted the
peaceful surrender of the city by the Byzantines.
This was during the reign of the caliph Umar ibn
al-Khattab (r. 634-644), who, according to some
accounts, was received by the city's Christian

patriarch Sophronius. Umar has also been credited
with having the neglected Temple Mount cleared
of debris and building a small mosque near where
the Aqsa Mosque would later be erected. There
was no forced conversion of Jews and Christians
to Islam. Generally faring better than under their
former Roman, Persian, and Byzantine rulers,
they were treated as “protected" (dh/MM/) com-
munities because they were People of the Book.
During the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750), which
had established its capital in nearby Damascus,
Muslim rulers greatly embellished the Noble
Sanctuary by reconstructing and expanding the
Aqsa Mosque and erecting the Dome of the Rock,
a strikingly beautiful edifice that symbolized the
advent of the new Umayyad political order and
promoted Islamic doctrines about God and Jesus
against those of Christianity.

As the centuries passed, Arabic replaced Greek
as the language of the populace. Jerusalems
prosperity declined when the Abbasids ended
Umayyad rule and transferred the capital eastward
from Damascus to Baghdad in the mid-eighth
century. As Abbasid power weakened in the 10th
century, rival powers contended for control over
Jerusalem and its environs. It remained a city
where the Christian majority lived together with
Jews and their Muslim rulers until the era of the
Crusades (11th to 13th centuries). Intercommunal
tensions were intensified when the Fatimid caliph
in Cairo, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (r. 996-1021),
ordered the destruction of the Church of the
Resurrection in September 1009. Historians have
offered different explanations for these and other
actions taken against Jews, Christians, and even
Muslims. Some explanations point to al-Hakim's
unstable personality or to his concern that the
Christian holy site was too wealthy and attracting
too many pilgrims, especially during the Easter
holidays. Others posit that he suspected Chris-
tians of colluding with rival rulers and Bedouin
chieftains to undermine Fatimid rule in Syria-Pal-
estine. Earthquakes, warfare, and a poor economy
further contributed to Jerusalem's decline. More-

Jerusalem 395

over, in contrast to Cairo, Mecca, Damascus, and
Baghdad, it lacked significant centers of learning
and famous scholars.

Eventually, word of al-Hakim’s harsh measures
against Christians in Jerusalem reached Europe
and provoked the launching of the First Crusade
in 1099, which sought to place Jerusalem and
the Holy Land under European Christian rule.
The crusaders took the city on July 15, 1099,
with much loss of life and destruction of prop-
erty. Eyewitness accounts describe the wholesale
slaughter of men and women, Muslims and Jews
alike, by the crusader warriors. City streets were
said to have run red with blood. In the aftermath
of the crusader victory, Muslims and Jews were
banned from the city, and even Eastern Chris-
tians (Greeks, Armenians, Nestorians, Georgians)
were expelled from its holy places. The crusaders
converted the Aqsa Mosque into a palace and the
Dome of the Rock into a church that they named
the “Temple of the Lord.’*

The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem the crusad-
ers founded lasted until 1187, when the Kurd-
ish Muslim warrior prince Saladin (d. 1193)
reconquered the city and pushed the crusaders to
the coastal areas of Palestine and Syria. Saladin,
who founded the Ayyubid dynasty (1169-1260),
restored the Muslim holy sites in the Noble Sanc-
tuary and reopened Jerusalem to Muslims, Jews,
and Eastern Christians. Some of the churches and
convents built by the crusaders were transformed
into mosques, madrasas, and Sufi hospices, which
attracted Muslim scholars, students, and mystics
belonging to many of the leading Sufi orders to the
city. Christians were permitted to maintain control
of the Church of the Resurrection, and even Latin
pilgrims were allowed to come. In 1229, during a
time of political feuding within Muslim ranks, the
sultan al-Kamil (r. 1218-38), Saladin's nephew,
allowed Latin crusaders to reoccupy Jerusalem
under the command of Frederick 11 (d. 1250), the
Holy Roman Emperor and enlightened monarch
from Sicily. Once again, non-Christians had little
if any access to the holy city. This interlude was

short-lived, however. After Frederick II departed,
Turkish troops allied with the Ayyubids attacked
both Damascus and Jerusalem in 1244, bringing
death and ruin in their wake. The crusading came
to an end, but one of its significant outcomes was
to enhance Jerusalems importance as a sacred
symbol among Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
This is when much of the Muslim devotional liter-
ature concerning Jerusalem's praiseworthy quali-
ties was composed and when pious Jews dreamed
of returning and reclaiming their sacred land.
Despite its holiness, or perhaps partly because of
it, Muslim rulers did not allow the city to have its
own defensive walls, a standard feature for cities
that had political or strategic importance. The
three religious communities were intermingled;
there was little if any ghettoization of religious
minorities.

After the fall of the Ayyubids, Jerusalem came
under the control of the Mamluks, a dynasty of
slave-soldiers that ruled from Cairo and Damascus
between 1250 and 1517. The city prospered under
their patronage. It is estimated that only about 70
Jewish families, divided into Sephardic (Spanish
and “Oriental") and Ashkenazi (European) com-
munities, lived there at this time, while many Jews
lived in the Galilee to the north. Mamluk control
was ended in 1517, when Ottoman armies con-
quered the region and incorporated it into their
expansive empire, which was based in the city
of Istanbul (Constantinople), the former capital
of the Byzantines that the Ottomans had taken
in 1453. Jerusalem enjoyed the patronage of the
Ottomans, who built the great wall known as
Suleyman's Wall in 1537-41, which now defines
the “Old City," and continued to support the
funding of its Islamic institutions. The Ottoman
millet system of governance, which favored the
formation of communities on the basis of religious
and ethnic identity, led to the appearance of reli-
giously aligned neighborhoods in Ottoman cities.
This explains the division of Jerusalem into 18
quarters divided among 4 groups: Jewish (2 quar-
ters), Muslim (4 quarters), Armenian Christian (4

< 5 ^

396 Jesus

quarters), and other Christians (Greeks, Latins,
and Copts) before the end of the 18th century. By
1850, Jerusalem had an estimated total popula-
tion of 15,000, with Jews becoming the largest
group (6,000) for the first time since the Roman
period. By the turn of the century, the city had
55,000 residents, including a large Jewish major-
ity (35,000).

CONTEMPORARY JERUSALEM

As the Ottoman Empire collapsed from internal
and external forces, Jerusalem became subject
to increasing involvement by European powers
and growing tensions among the different com-
munities that lived in it. European governments
opened consulates there, and missionaries opened
schools and churches to win converts. European
Jewish philanthropists such as the Montefiores
and the Rothschilds supported the building of
schools, clinics, and hospitals for the city’s Jewish
population. Meanwhile, Jerusalem had become
the focal point of a worldwide Zionist movement
that sought to create a modern national home-
land for all Jews. After World War 1, the Ottoman
Empire collapsed. Its holdings in Syria, Transjor-
dan (later Jordan), and Palestine were divided
between France and Britain, the two main victors
in the war. Transjordan and Palestine (including
Jerusalem) fell under the British mandate, which
remained in effect until 1948, when the modern
slate of Israel was created. During the mandate
period, Palestinian Arab nationalism was also
stirred, and Jerusalem became a major center for
the Palestinian nationalist movement, a largely
secular movement that included Arab Christians
as well as Muslims.

Conflict between Jewish and Arab nationalisms
led to the division of Jerusalem into two parts in
the war of 1947-48. Although the United Nations
recommended that the city be internationalized,
Jews claimed control of West Jerusalem and Arabs
claimed East Jerusalem. The dividing line ran
north to south in line with the western wall of the
Old City. Israel made West Jerusalem its capital.

despite international objections. Jordan ruled East
Jerusalem until the 1967 Arab-lsraeli war, when
the entire city came under Israeli control. Today
Jerusalem remains a much-contested holy city — a
focal point of religious violence, nationalist aspi-
rations, and messianic expectations that extend all
the way to the evangelical Christian communities
of the United States. Its status as Israel’s capital
remains controversial. Calls for its internation-
alization continue, but there is also support for
making it the shared capital of both Israel and a
Palestinian state that has yet to be realized. Mean-
while, the city has grown in size and population.
It is Israel's largest city, followed by Tel Aviv-Jaffa
and Haifa. In 2007, according to the Israeli Cen-
tral Bureau of Statistics, it had more than 732,000
inhabitants (65 percent Jews, 32 percent Muslims,
and 2 percent Christians), including those living
in outlying towns and settlements.

See also Abbasid Caliphate; Arab-Israeli con-
flicts; Christianity and Islam; Fatimid dynasty;
Judaism and Islam; Mamluk; Ottoman dynasty.

Further reading: Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem: One
City, Three Faiths (New York: Random House, 1996);
Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History
of Jerusalem (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996); Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic
Jerusalem (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1996), F. E. Peters Jerusalem (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1995); , Jerusalem and Mecca:

The Typology of the Holy City in the Near East (New
York: New York University Press, 1987); A. L. Tibawi,
“Jerusalem: Its Place in Islam and Arab History.” The
Islamic Quarterly 12, no. 4 (1968): 185-218.

Jesus (Arabic: Isa) the first-century Jewish
teacher who Christians believe to be a savior and
who Muslims believe was a prophet who brought the
Gospel, which contained part of God's message for
humanity

Jesus' name appears in 15 quranic chapters and
93 verses. Known as “the Messiah Jesus, the son

jihad 397

of Mary" (for example, Q 3:43), Muslims believe
that Jesus was born of a virgin named Mary and
that he taught the true religion of God, many
aspects of which Christians later misinterpreted
(for example, Q 5:17; 19:16-37). Following the
quranic narrative, they hold that while he was
not crucified, he was raised to heaven and will
return at the end of time to defeat the ANTICHRIST
(a l-Dajjal). Muslims also believe that Jesus was a
prophet ( rasul , nabi) who foretold the coming of
Muhammad. Additional accounts about Jesus were
later included in the hadith. Lives of the Prophets
literature, and Sufi poetry and hagiographies.

One of several mistakes Muslims believe Chris-
tians have made about Jesus is their claim that he
was divine. Because a key belief in Islam is an
absolute MONOTHEISM ( TAWHID ), Muslims believe
it is blasphemous to maintain that any human
being can have divine attributes. For Muslims,
God is perfect and holy and as such cannot be
captured in any human form. The idea that Jesus
was human and not divine does not detract from
his important role as a prophet. The message he
preached to humanity was as meaningful as the
prophets who preceded him. Muslims also reject
the Christian notion of the trinity because they
believe it is a form of idolatry that undermines
God's oneness.

The Quran's assertions about Jesus suggest
that he and Muhammad had similar experiences,
and, as such, Muslims believe that there were
some parallels between the lives of these figures.
God gave each of them the task of proclaiming
his message to humanity. They both had compan-
ions who attempted to understand their message,
encountered opponents who severely criticized
the ideas they declared, and gave prophecies
about the future. Muslims believe Jesus foretold
the coming of Muhammad, while in the hadith,
Muhammad declared the day of judgment that
would come at the end of time.

Muslims believe that when Jesus' enemies
attempted to crucify him, God intentionally
deceived them by projecting Jesus' likeness onto

someone else whom they mistakenly crucified (Q
4:157-158). However, Muslims do believe that
Jesus ascended into heaven. For them, neither
divinity nor crucifixion is necessary to authenti-
cate the enormous value of Jesus' life and teach-
ings. The Arabic name Isa (J esus ) is used by
Muslims as a personal name, and it is thought
that the mixing of Muslims and Christians in
Andalusia (Islamic Spain) helped make Jesus a
common name among Spanish-speaking Chris-
tians as well.

Followers of one of the branches of the
Ahmadiyya sect, unlike the majority of Muslims,
maintain that Jesus survived crucifixion and
migrated to Kashmir under the name Yuz Asaf,
where he survived to old age and was buried.

See also Christianity and Islam; Gospel; holy
books; prophets and prophecy.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: Kenneth Cragg , Jesus and the Muslim:
An Exploration (London and Boston. G. Allen & Unwin,
1985); Tarif Khalidi. The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and
Stories in Islamic Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 2001); Javad Nurbakhsh, Jesus in the
Eyes of the Sufis (London: Khaniqahi-Nimatullahi Pub-
lications, 1983); Edward Geoffrey Parrinder, Jesus in
the Quran (Oxford: Oneworld, 1995); Neal Robinson,
Christ in Islam and Christianity: The Representation of
Jesus in the Quran and the Classical Muslim Commentar-
ies (London: Macmillan, 1991); Ahmad ibn Muham-
mad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi qisas al-anbiya , or
“ Lives of the Prophets .” Translated by William M. Brin-
ner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002), 622-680.

Literally, the Arabic word jihad means to strive
or struggle (in the path of God); it often refers to
religiously sanctioned warfare. The Quran advo-
cates jihad to extend Gods rule (Q 2:192, 8:39),
promising reward in the afterlife for those who
are killed in battle (Q 3:157-158, 169-172) and
punishment for those who do not participate (Q

jihad movements 399

Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern
History (The Hague: Mouton, 1979); Rudolph Peters.
Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton, N.J.:
Markus Weiner Publishers. 1996).

jihad movements

Jihad is one of the most contested terms in Islam.
The terms basic Arabic meaning yields words
generally meaning striving or struggle, whether
in the more general sense of striving for correct
practice or, more particularly, striving for inter-
pretive clarity in reading the Quran and hadith.
Jihad, however, has been widely understood, by
both Muslims and non-Muslims, as religiously
sanctioned warfare. The Islamic legal schools
formalized jihad doctrines of warfare in the wake
of the early conquests, based on statements in
the Quran and hadith. Radical Islamist move-
ments active in modern times have given the
term renewed significance, often significantly
changing traditional understandings formulated
in the premodern Islamic legal traditions. Claim-
ing to act in the name of Islam, these movements
have strived to fight what they see as imperialist
anti-Muslim agents and apostates, both at home
and abroad.

Jihad movements appeared in a number of
different Muslim societies in the 18th and 19th
centuries, coinciding with the onset of the second
millennium of the Islamic calendar. Some were
Mahdist in nature, following the lead of self-
proclaimed Mahdis (Islamic messianic leaders)
and the onset of a new age. Promoting Islamic
revival and reform, these movements established
Islamic states in West Africa. The movement
of the Sudanese Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad (d.
1885) opposed European imperialism, a trend
that a number of jihad movements followed in
North Africa, the Caucasus region, India, Suma-
tra, and Java. The Wahhabi movement in Arabia
attacked what its leaders considered un-lslamic
practices and created the Saudi state using a
jihadist ideology and tribal warriors. After World

War II, as Muslim lands became decolonized,
jihad movements and militias arose in opposi-
tion to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza territories. They also appeared in Lebanon
in response to Israel's occupation of the country
in 1982. Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat (d.
1981) was assassinated by the Jihad Group, which
considered him to be an un-lslamic leader because
of his pro-Western policies, despotism, and peace
agreement with Israel. The Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 gave birth to
an array of anti-Soviet militias that included jihad
groups composed of Afghan and foreign guer-
rilla fighters supported by the United States and
Saudi Arabia. These included a loosely organized
group of Arab fighters led by Usama bin Ladin and
Ayman al-Zawahiri that came to be known as AL-
Qaida (The Base). The success of the jihadist mili-
tias against the Soviet army inspired bin Ladin's
group to engage in other militant activities. It also
gave new motivation to jihad movements in other
Muslim lands.

Following the events of September 11, 2001,
many Muslims have actively sought to distance
themselves — and Islam in general — from jihad-
ist interpretations of Islam. Nonetheless, move-
ments such as the Jamaa al-Islamiyya (Islamic
Group) in Egypt and al-Qaida have made their
mark, creating an association of Islam with
violence that has proved difficult to break. It is
important to note, however, that there are Mus-
lim movements that carry out “jihadist" work in
the name of Islam that is explicitly nonpolitical
and nonviolent. The Tablighi Jamaat, which
began in India in the early 20th century and has
spread throughout the world, is one such move-
ment. Jihad in this context has come to mean the
struggle to keep Muslims within the Islamic fold
in the face of Western-style modernity and secu-
larism, a task accomplished through personal
piety and proselytizing.

See also Abd al-Rahman, Umar; Afghan
mujahidin; Faraizi movement; Barelwi, Sayyid
Ahmad; Hamas; Hizbullah; renewal and reform

400 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali

movements; Shamil; terrorism; Wahhabism; West
Africa.

Caleb Elfenbein

Further reading: Fawaz A. Gerges, Journey of the Jihad -
ist: Inside Muslim Militancy (Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt,
2006); Gilles Kcpel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002);
Ahmed Rashid, Jih ad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Cen-
tral Asia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
2002); William R. Roff, "Islamic Movements: One or
Many?” In Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning:
Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse edited by Wil-
liam R. Roff, 31-52 (London: Croom Helm, and Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1987).

Jinnah, Muhammad Ali ("the greatest
leader”: Qaid-i Azam, Quaid-i Azam)

(1876-1948) leading Muslim politician in
prepartition India and first governor-general
of Pakistan

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born in Karachi
(now in Pakistan) to a successful Ismaili Khoja
family from Gujarat. In his youth, he attended a
Muslim school, but he obtained his high school
education from a Christian missionary school
in Karachi. At the age of 17, instead of attending
the University of Bombay, Jinnah was sent by his
family to London to work as an apprentice in an
international trading firm that did business with
his father, Jinnahbhai (d. 1901). He never com-
pleted his apprenticeship but was drawn to study
law at Lincolns Inn instead. At the age of 19, he
became the youngest Indian ever to be admitted to
the English bar. He also took an interest in British
politics, attending sessions of the House of Com-
mons during his sojourn in London and helping
an Indian politician become the first member
from that country to be elected to this legislative
body. In 1896, he was obliged to return to India
because his fathers business had failed.

The Jinnah who came back to India had
become Anglicized — his austere demeanor, dress.

and personal habits were more English than
Gujarati. He earned a good reputation as a civil
attorney in Bombay (now known as Mumbai), one
of India's most important ports and commercial
centers. He became caught up in the nationalist
movement that was seeking to win a greater role
for Indians in the British colonial government as
well as a greater share of the civil service jobs.
The most important body of nationalists was the
Indian National Congress (INC), which had been
established in Bombay in 1885, and Jinnah became
an active member starting in 1906. As the Indian
nationalist movement shifted to seeking actual
independence from British rule, Muslim elites in
northern India became increasingly concerned
about their eventual minority status in a nation
that would be dominated by a Hindu majority,

Muhammad Ali Jinnah with his sister Fatime on his 72nd
birthday ( 1 947), Karachi, Pakistan (Corbis/Bettmann)

Jinnah, Muhammad Ali 401

even if it was secular and democratic in outlook.
It was in this context that the All-India Muslim
League (A1ML) was formed in 1906. Jinnah, who
was not a very devout Muslim, deferred joining it
until 1913 and became its president in 1916. His
strategy was to maintain Muslim-Hindu coopera-
tion in the nationalist cause, but he quit the INC
in 1920 because of his concern that MOHANDAS
K. Gandhi (d. 1948), a fellow-Gujarati and rising
star in the INC, was giving the movement a more
Hindu character than he could accept. He was
unhappy both with Gandhi's support of the Khila-
fat Movement and with his strategy of mobilizing
the masses to participate in nonviolent acts of civil
disobedience. He, on the other hand, preferred to
work through the existing political system that
was dominated by India's educated elites, operat-
ing within the limits of British colonial law.

During the 1920s, Jinnah struggled to keep
AIML united, obtain assurances from the INC that
Muslims would be guaranteed representation in
any future local and national legislatures, and win
recognition for Muslim representation in Mus-
lim majority regions of Northwest India (Sindh
and the Punjab). He left India in frustration in
1930 and stayed in London until 1935, when
he returned to reunite the AIML and renew its
participation in the nationalist cause. The league
suffered a surprising defeat in India's first national
election in 1937. It failed to win in Muslim-major-
ity provinces, while the INC, on the other hand,
achieved impressive victories and gained control
of the parliament. Jinnah did not give up but
changed tactics to gain popular support for AIML
by mobilizing India's Sufis and campaigning in the
countryside. Moreover, unlike the INC, the AIML
under his leadership declared its support for the
British during World War II, which placed it in a
favorable position vis-a-vis the British when the
war ended in 1945. As a result, AIML swept all the
seats reserved for Muslims in the parliamentary
election of 1946.

The elections, however, rather than lead-
ing to an intercommunal consensus for national

unity, exacerbated tensions between Hindus and
Muslims in northern India. AIML and its sup-
porters called for a separate homeland for Mus-
lims — Pakistan (Pure Land). This idea had been
first proposed by Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938), an
Indian intellectual and poet, in 1930, when he
was inaugurated as president of AIML. Iqbal urged
Jinnah after the 1937 elections to support self-
determination for the Muslims of northwest India
and Bengal. Jinnah was not enthusiastic about
a separate homeland, but, in 1940, he declared
that Hindus and Muslims constituted two differ-
ent nations that had never been united and never
would be. In the postwar climate, he pushed more
forcefully for an independent Pakistan, believing
that Congress under the leadership of Gandhi
and Jawaharlal Nehru (d. 1964) would never
agree to share power with AIML or give Muslims
a guaranteed percentage of seats in parliament.
Democracy would only bring about a Hindu raj
(rule) in place of the British one. In 1946, a Brit-
ish proposal to make India into a loose federation
of provinces grouped according to religious affili-
ation failed to win support from either AIML or
INC. Jinnah called for Muslims to take “direct
action” on behalf of the idea of an Indian Muslim
homeland by going on strike and conducting pub-
lic protests, but this led to outbreaks of communal
violence in different parts of India, especially in
Bengal, Calcutta, and Bihar. Pakistan emerged as
an independent state with Jinnah as its first leader,
or governor-general, on August 14, 1947, while
India proclaimed independence from Britain on
August 15, 1947.

Jinnah's career as leader of the newly indepen-
dent country was short-lived. He died of tubercu-
losis and lung cancer on September 11, 1948. His
burial place on a hill in Karachi, Pakistan's provi-
sional capital, has become a national monument.
He has also been memorialized on Pakistan's
currency, and one of its most prominent universi-
ties, the Qaid-i Azam University (also known as
Quaid-i Azam University) in Islamabad, has been
named after him.

402 jinni

See also colonialism; democracy; Hinduism
and Islam; Ismaili Shiism; politics and Islam;

SECULARISM.

Further reading: Akbar S. Ahmed, Jintiah , Pakistan,
and Islamic Identity (London: Routledge, 1997); Ainslie
Embree and Stephen Hay, eds., Sources of Indian Tradi-
tion. Vol. 2, Modern India and Pakistan. 2d cd. (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Dominique
Lapierre and Larry Collins, Freedom at Midnight. 2d ed.
(New Delhi: Vikas Publishing, 1997); Stanley Wolpcrt.
Jinnah oj Pakistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1984).

jinni (Arabic singular of jinn, or English
genie)

The jinn are intelligent beings capable of doing
good and evil. They were first known to the
inhabitants of pre-Islamic Arabia as a kind of
nature spirit or minor deity. Poets and seers were
believed to have magical powers in part owing to
being possessed by, or having a special relation
with, them. Indeed, Muhammad's seventh-cen-
tury opponents accused him of being possessed
by these spirits rather than being in communion
with the one God, Allah. The jinn arc mentioned
frequently in the Quran, which even has a chap-
ter about them that bears their name (Q 72). As
creatures created from smokeless fire or vapor,
they stand in contrast to angels, who were created
from light, and humans, who were created from
clay. Iblis, or Satan, is one of the jinn (Q 18:50),
but the Quran also portrays him as a rebellious
angel (Q 38:73-76), a belief that had arisen in
Judaism and Christianity previously. The jinn can
have human qualities; their knowledge is limited
and they have moral agency. They can either sub-
mit to God and become Muslims, or they can slan-
der and disobey him, for which God will judge
them. The demonic jinn are called satans (Arabic
shayatin). There are many tales about the jinn,
and some even hold that they can marry people
and have children. Unlike humans, however, they

can change shapes so that they can appear as ANI-
MALS such as cats, dogs, and goats. Belief in them
is an accepted aspect of official Islamic doctrine.

When Islam spread outside of Arabia, belief in
the jinn was assimilated with local beliefs about
deities and spirits, from Africa to Iran, Turkey,
India, and Southeast Asia. In folk religion, they
are spirits often held responsible for extraordinary
events, even miracles, as well as many kinds of
illness. Special amulets are made to control them
or keep them from doing harm. During the 19th
century, a women's religious movement known as
the Zar cult emerged in the Nile Valley and spread
to adjacent areas. Its purpose was to heal women
of psychoses and bodily ailments by identify-
ing and appeasing the jinn. Today scientifically
minded Muslims tend to deny the existence of
these extraordinary spirits or explain them in
psychological terms.

See also amulets and talismans; Arabian reli-
gions, PRE-ISLAMIC; EVIL EYE.

Patrick O'Donnell and Juan E. Campo

Further reading: Eleanor Abdclla Doumato, Getting
God’s Ear: Women, Islam, and Healing in Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press);
Edward Wcstcrmarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco, 2
vols. (New York: University Books, 1968).

jizya (Arabic: poll tax)

The jizya was a poll (or head) tax paid by non-
Muslim subjects (dh/mm/s) to Muslim govern-
ments. The legal basis for this tax (Q 9:29),
commands Muslims to “fight those who have
previously received revelation who do not believe
in God or in the Last Day and who do not forbid
that which God and his Prophet have forbidden
and who do not believe in the true religion, until
they agree to pay the jizya in humility."

The legal texts that lay out the normative
definitions of jizya are all from a period postdat-
ing the first century of Islam (ca. eighth century

- 4 = 5 ^

406 Jordan

the Ottomans began enforcing a more central-
ized taxing system and curbed the power of the
tribes, first by military campaigns against them,
and when that failed, by settling Circassians from
the Caucasus region in tribal border areas such as
the largely abandoned town of Amman. Increased
security and the resulting upswing in regional
commerce brought new immigrants to towns
such as Irbid, Ajloun, Salt, and Karak. Syrian and
Palestinian merchants from Damascus, Nablus,
JERUSALEM, and Hebron settled branches of their
families in the main Jordanian towns in order to
expand their commercial ties.

Jordan is often described as the most prepos-
terous of the newly mandated territories created
by the British and French after World War 1. Its
jagged, straight-lined borders to the north, east,
and south do not correspond to any natural geo-
graphical boundaries and seem arbitrary lines in
the desert. In November 1920, Abd Allah, the
son of Sharif Husayn ibn Ali (d. 1931) of Mecca,
encamped in Maan with an armed group of 300
fighters intending to march on Damascus to assist
in the defense of his brother Faysals independent
Arab kingdom declared in 1918. Instead, when
he arrived in Amman in March 1921, the Brit-
ish offered to sponsor him as the emir (Arabic:
amir, ruler) of Transjordan. Abd Allah accepted
and later became the first king in the Hashimite
dynasty that still rules Jordan today. Over the
course of the 20th century, with the consolidation
and longevity of state power, a Jordanian national
identity has taken hold over a majority of the
population.

One factor that has led to the partial success
of national identity formation in Jordan is cultural
homogeneity. Almost the whole population is
Arab, with the exception of very small Circassian,
Chechen, Kurdish, and Armenian communities.
About 93 percent of Jordanians are Sunni Muslims
who follow the Hanafi Legal School, although
this is changing. There are small groups of Alawis,
Twelve-Imam Shia, and Druze. About 5 percent of
Jordanians are Christians, mostly Greek Ortho-

dox. There are some Catholics, Maronites, and
Protestants. Historically, institutionalized religion
was weak in Jordan. At the beginning of the 19th
century, there was hardly any functioning mosque
or church of any significance in any town or vil-
lage. The spread of formal religious structures
began only during the 1920s with the establish-
ment of Hashemite rule. Since the 1950s, the
government has often allied itself with Islamist
political forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood
in order to legitimize its authority. However,
autonomous Islamist politicians who have gone
against government policies have been severely
repressed.

Jordan suffers from cataclysmic destabilizing
events on its borders. It has been particularly
affected by Israeli-Palcstinian conflict. Although
King Abd Allah secretly negotiated with Zionist
leaders over the partition of Palestine, Jorda-
nian troops led by a British commanding officer
fought in the Jerusalem area in the 1948 war in
Palestine. With the establishment of the state
of Israel, Jordan annexed the West Bank of
the Jordan River. By doing so, it immediately
acquired a majority-Palestinian population and
the largest number of the 750,000 to 800,000
Palestinians who either fled the fighting or were
forced from their homes. King Abd Allah was
assassinated by a Palestinian gunman on July 20,
1950, as he was entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque in
Jerusalem for Friday prayers. In the 1967 Arab-
Israeli war, Israel occupied the West Bank, and
300,000 more Palestinian refugees fled to the
East Bank. Another 300,000 Palestinian refugees
suddenly arrived in Jordan in 1991 after they
were expelled from Kuwait at the end of the first
Gulf War. As of December 2006, 1 ,858,362 Pales-
tinians were officially registered with the United
Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA) as
refugees in Jordan, and 328,076 of them lived in
10 refugee camps spread throughout the country.
Jordan has by far the largest number of the 4.4
million Palestinians recognized by the UNWRA
as refugees from 1948 and their descendants. It

Jordan 407

'tf=a i D

is estimated that from 60 percent to 80 percent of
the Jordanian population is of Palestinian origin.
The current reigning queen, Rania, is of Palestin-
ian origin from Kuwait.

Much of the history of the modern state of
Jordan since independence has been dominated
by the figure of King Husayn who came to power
when he was only 18 in May 1953 after his father
Talal was forced to abdicate because of mental
illness. The early years of his rule were marked
by a resurgent opposition to foreign influence
in Jordan. In elections held only a few weeks
before Israel, France, and Britain invaded Egypt
in 1956, Arab nationalists and communists won
the majority of seats in parliament and were
able to form a government. Husayn was forced
to dismiss his British military advisers, but then
exchanged British for U.S. patronage in 1957.
The alliance with the United States was enduring
and today Jordan is one of the largest recipients
of U.S. foreign aid in the Middle East after Iraq,
Israel, and Egypt.

The rule of King Husayn was seriously chal-
lenged by the rise of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) and Palestinian armed resis-
tance organizations that were based in the refugee
camps. After Palestinian militants hijacked three
international airline carriers and flew them to an
airfield near Zarqa in September 1970, the Jorda-
nian army launched an all-out attack on the PLO
armed presence in the camps and, by 1971, the
PLO was forced to move its military and political
headquarters to Beirut, Lebanon. In 1974 the Arab
League recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people. King
Husayn still claimed Jordanian sovereignty over
the West Bank until 1988. During these years he
maintained secret contacts with Israeli leaders. A
full peace agreement with Israel was signed on
October 26, 1994. King Husayn died of cancer on
February 7, 1999, and was succeeded by his son
Abdullah (b. 1962), the present monarch.

Jordan is witnessing a rapid demographic
and economic transformation caused by the

U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 with unpredictable
consequences. Some reports put the number
of Iraqis now resident in Jordan as high as 1.5
million or one-fifth of Jordan’s entire popula-
tion. Some of the Iraqi refugees are wealthy
and billions of dollars have been poured into
unproductive speculative investments such as
the stock market and real estate. The rise in land
and housing prices has hit Jordan's lower classes
the hardest and caused overcrowding and the
delay of marriages due to lack of suitable hous-
ing. The sudden influx of tens of thousands of
poor Iraqi war refugees has overburdened the
educational system and medical and social ser-
vices. Many thousands of Iraqi refugee children
have not been in school for two or more years,
creating a potential generation of illiterates and
unemployed who will be compelled to face the
insecurity of the informal labor sector or fall into
criminal activities. The poorest of the Iraqi refu-
gees are beginning to move into the overcrowded
low-income neighborhoods of East Amman and
even into some of the Palestinian refugee camps
causing social tensions as communities vie (or
scant public services and resources.

Jordan is quickly becoming a land of social
contrasts. High-rise construction, the increase
in the number of luxury hotels for tourism, and
infrastructure modernization are occurring at an
astonishing pace in areas such as West Amman,
on the shores of the Dead Sea, and in Aqaba. U.S.-
based fast food conglomerates, cafes, restaurants,
nightclubs, and mega malls dot the landscape of
West Amman with its villas and condos. Cities
such as Zarqa or the neglected neighborhoods of
East Amman that have not been the beneficiaries
of priority public investment, the input of billions
of recycled Iraqi war dollars, or the focus for the
burgeoning tourist industry have suffered from a
deterioration of housing stock, overcrowding, a
lack of services, and serious environmental deg-
radation. Unemployment and underemployment
are rampant. Over 30 percent of the population
lives below the poverty line and the thousands

408 Joseph

of undocumented Iraqi war refugees put even
the best estimates in doubt. Yet despite these
anomalies, the life expectancy of the average
Jordanian of 78.5 years surpasses that of the aver-
age U.S. citizen by one year. Street crime, theft,
and murders arc rare occurrences. Jordan is also
experimenting with democratic forms of political
participation both at the state and local levels
of government. Civil society is expanding and
nongovernmental organizations are flourishing.
The government promotes womens participation
in government, business, and the public sphere.
The literacy rates are among the highest in the
region. The government has heavily invested in
making Jordan a center for high-tech, medical,
and professional services for the whole region.
English has been introduced as a mandatory
second language at all levels of the educational
system. The challenge facing Jordan is how to
achieve its developmental goals and not be side-
tracked by unresolved conflicts on its borders
that have serious consequences inside its own
territory.

See also Alawi; Arab-Israeli conflicts; Arme-
nians; Christianity and Islam; Crusades; democ-
racy; Husayn ibn Ali, Sharif; Islamism; Ottoman

DYNASTY.

Garay Menicucci

Further reading: George Alan, Jordan: Living in the
Crossfire (London: Zed Books, 2005); Joseph Massad,
Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in
Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001);
Abd al- Raman Munif, Story of a City: A Childhood
in Amman (London: Quartet Books. 1996); Eugene
Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman
Empire: Transjordan 1850-1921 (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999); Jillian Schwedler. Faith in
Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Avi Shlaim,
The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah , the Zionists , and
Palestine 1921-1951 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998).

Joseph (Arabic: Yusuf) the son of the Israelite
patriarch Jacob and a Muslim prophet who, because
of his brothers' jealousy, was sold to slavery and exiled
in Egypt

The longest segment of material about Joseph
appears in sura 12 of the Quran, which is named
after Joseph, the son of Jacob (Arabic: Yaaqub).
This sura's 111 verses constitute the Quran's
longest continual narrative of one character's life.
They relate Jacob's favoritism toward Joseph; his
brothers jealousy that compels Joseph be sold to
slavery in Egypt; Joseph's brother's deceitfulness
toward their father Jacob; Joseph's handsomeness;
the attempted seduction of Joseph by the wife of
his Egyptian master; as well as Joseph's impris-
onment, exoneration, and his interpretation of
dreams, which led to his family's move to Egypt
and their acceptance of Pharaohs protection.

The sura about Joseph emphasizes the quranic
theme that God can directly influence human
affairs. It portrays God as playing a crucial role
in directing the events in Josephs and his family's
lives. Joseph also exemplifies the powers associ-
ated with true prophets of God in that Joseph's
prophetic dreams foretell future events. Joseph's
life as a prophet embodies a pattern found in the
lives of other quranic prophets: he is severely criti-
cized and marginalized; finally, he is vindicated and
rises to a position of great honor. As such, Joseph
is one of many quranic prophets, the pattern of
whose lives are precursors for the life of Muham-
mad. The idea of Muhammad's life reflecting those
of previous prophets such as Joseph's is strength-
ened by the belief of many Muslims that the sura
about Joseph was revealed to Muhammad at the
very time seventh-century skeptics of Muhammad
challenged his knowledge of the narratives of the
children of Israel. According to many Muslims,
the detail and specificity of the sura provide a very
persuasive response to this challenge.

Some of the best-known passages in this chap-
ter portray Joseph as being so handsome that the
women of Egypt cut their hands in their astonish-

Judaism and Islam 409

ment as they gazed at him. Some Muslims believe
that this proverbial beauty is one of the rewards
of heaven, where all men are as handsome as
Joseph. Commentators have even asserted, “God
allotted to Joseph two-thirds of (all) beauty and
divided up the remaining third among humanity"
(Thalabi 183). The Joseph story also attracted the
attention of Sufi visionaries such as Muhyi al-Din
ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240),Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273),
and Jami of Herat (d. 1492). Persian and Turkish
mystical poets in particular were drawn to the
romance between Joseph and Zulaykha, the name
given by commentators to the Egyptians wife.
Her desire for him was understood to symbolize
the desire of the purified soul for union with God,
the beloved.

The location of Joseph's remains is disputed.
Pious Jews and Palestinians believe that they are
located in the West Bank city of Nablus. This
shrine has been the focus of conflict between
Israelis and Palestinians; it suffered damage in
2000 during the al-Aqsa Intifada.

See also dreams; Judaism and Islam; Majnun
and Layla; prophets and prophethood.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: Shalom Goldman. The Wiles of Women/
the Wiles of Men: Joseph and Poliphar’s Wife in Ancient
Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1995); G. R. Hawting and
Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, Approaches to the Quran (London
and New York: Routledge, 1993); John Kaltner, Inquiring
of Joseph: Getting to Know a Biblical Character through
the Quran (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2003);
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi
qisas al-anbiya , or “ Lives of the Prophets . ” Translated by
William M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002), 181-235.

Judaism and Islam

As Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam bear
significant similarities that testify to a lengthy
and complex history of dynamic interactions.

Although it is widely perceived today that the rela-
tionship between these two religions is essentially
one of conflict and opposition, closer examination
reveals that there have been occasions of extended
mutual accommodation and shared civilizational
development in the past that cannot be easily
dismissed. Indeed, scholars maintain that Juda-
ism and Islam engaged in a “creative symbiosis,”
whereby each party benefited and changed as
a result of its contacts with the other. It is also
the case that in modern times national and geo-
political factors have been more important than
religious ones. Arab-Israeli conflicts cannot be
adequately explained in terms of the 12 centuries
of Judeo-Muslim interaction that preceded the
20th-century conflicts. Moreover, though these
modern conflicts have been horrific, they arc
of a limited scope, confined largely to a part of
the Middle East region, directly involving only a
minority of the worlds total Muslim population.

FAMILY RESEMBLANCES

There are a number of key similarities that cluster
together to support the view that Judaism and
Islam form part of a family of religions, which
may be called Abrahamic. The foremost of these
is belief in a unique sovereign deity who governs
creation. The commonest name for this deity in
Islam, Allah, is historically related to one of the
divine names in the Hebrew Bible, Elohim, and
both names arc related to a word root for god
found in other Semitic cultures of the ancient
Near East (for example, el, il, ilu). Both religions
reject idolatry, holding that God communicated
to humanity in history through chosen prophets,
a number of whom are shared by both religions.
These revelations were captured in scriptures, or
HOLY books. The primary scripture for Judaism is
the Torah of Moses and for Islam it is the Quran
of Muhammad. These scriptures, written in the
sacred languages of Hebrew and Arabic, respec-
tively, express key beliefs, ethical principles, sacred
histories, and rules for worship and everyday life.

Judaism and Islam 41 1

(Q 7:159; compare 28:52-54), which was under-
stood by Muslim commentators to be a reference
to Jews who had accepted Muhammad's mes-
sage. Indeed, the Quran promised Jews and other
believers a blissful afterlife in reward for their
faith (Q 2:62; 4:162).

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
JUDEO-MUSLIM SYMBIOSIS

Historical evidence for the history of the Jews in
the centuries immediately preceding and follow-
ing the emergence of Islam in the Middle East
is limited largely to the Quran and early Muslim
historiography, particularly I bn Ishaq's biography
of Muhammad ( Sirat rasul Allah , mid-eighth cen-
tury), al-Waqidis history of Muslim military cam-
paigns ( Kitab al-maghazi, early ninth century),
and al-Tabari’s universal history ( Tarikh al-rusul
wal-muluk, early 10th century). Many scholars,
including those working in Western academia, rely
on these sources to reconstruct the history of rela-
tions between the two communities, as well as the
Arabian origins of Islam itself. Some scholars have
called the historicity of these sources into ques-
tion, however, positing instead that the Quran and
related accounts were not composed until the late
eighth-early ninth century. Most, however, agree
that Islamic sources do, in fact, provide witness to
the early history of Islam, even though they may
have been shaped by later concerns and biases.
With respect to Judaism, the presence of biblical
and post-biblical Judaic stories in the Quran and
the histories indicates direct or indirect contacts
with Jews when these texts were written, whether
that occurred in the seventh century or later.

According to Muslim sources there were Jew-
ish communities living in Yemen and western
Arabia (the Hijaz) when the Islamic movement
began. Of particular importance were Jewish
tribes in Yathrib, the city that would become
known as Medina after the emigration (Hijra)
of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to
that city in 622. In the so-called Constitution of
Medina, which scholars consider to be one of the

earliest non-quranic Islamic documents, Jewish
tribes in Medina were recognized as having their
own religion (or judgment); those who agreed to
follow Muhammad were considered to be on a par
with the Ansar and Meccan Emigrants. Accord-
ing to Muslim accounts, Jewish groups in Medina
refused to heed Muhammad's call and began to
conspire with his opponents in Mecca. Muslim
commentators indicate that it was in this context
that the one-day Yom Kippur fast observed by
Muhammad's followers in concert with the Jews
was changed to the one-month fast of Rama-
dan, signaling a break with the Jews. Likewise,
Muhammad was instructed by God to change the
prayer direction (qibla) from Jerusalem to Mecca.
The escalating estrangement between Muslims
and Jews in Medina ended with the destruction
and expulsion of all the city’s Jews by the time
of Muhammad's death in 632. All non-Muslims
would eventually be banned from living in the
Hijaz region.

The Arab Muslim conquests of the wider Mid-
dle East and the establishment of a new empire
that extended from North Africa to the Indus
River valley during the late seventh and eighth
centuries brought about a new order with new
opportunities for subject peoples. Jews and Chris-
tians who submitted to Muslim rulers became
“protected'' (dh/mmj) members of the Islamicate
polity who were obliged to pay the quranic jizya
tax and observe other restrictions, but were
otherwise allowed to pursue religious life under
their own authorities. Evidence indicates that
some Jews and Christians even participated with
the Muslim armies in the conquests and settled
into the new post-conquest towns and garrisons
in Egypt and Iraq. Jerusalem surrendered to the
Arab invaders without resistance and Jews were
allowed to return to the city after having been
banned from it by the Byzantines. The uniting
of lands formerly divided between the Byzantine
and Persian empires into one great Islamicate
oikoumene enhanced the integration of Jews living
in the Mediterranean region with those living in

'Css^

41 2 Judaism and Islam

the east. The key symbol for Jewish religious life
was the dual Torah of Moses, oral and written,
which gave meaning to their life in the diaspora
and hope for messianic fulfillment. Muslim rulers
encouraged the consolidation of leadership in the
Jewish community under the Gaons, heads of the
rabbinic academies in Iraq and Palestine, and the
Exilarchs, political chiefs linked to the caliphal
government.

Having dhimmi status assigned to them by
Muslim authorities did not confine Jews to a
single stratum of Islamicate society. They were
actively involved in transregional trade networks
and banking, often with the support and encour-
agement of the caliph. They also worked in menial
or degrading trades and occupations such as
weaving, tanning, blacksmilhing, horse trading,
working in public baths, jailers, and executioners.
Indeed, S. D. Goitcins studies of 1 Oth-1 1 th-cen-
tury Cairo Geniza documents have shown that
Jews worked in nearly every known occupation,
ranging from high government office, education,
medicine, and trade to the criminal professions.
In Andalusia Jews participated in what has been
called the convivcncia, a coexistence with Muslims
and Christians that led to the production of a rich
Judeo-Arabic literary corpus, the translation and
transmission of Arabic philosophy and science to
medieval Europe, and the rise of such prominent
Jewish intellectuals as Judah Ha-Levi (d. 1141)
and Maimonides (d. 1204). Jewish converts were
remembered in Islamic tradition for transmitting
rabbinic traditions and adapting them to different
Islamic textual genres, especially the hadith, tafsir
(Quran commentary), legal texts, and stories
about the Islamic prophets.

This is not to say that the history of the Judeo-
Islamic symbiosis was perfectly harmonious. As
part of an ongoing process of self-definition, Mus-
lims engaged in anti-Judaic polemics, which Jews
reciprocated. Jewish revolts were forcefully sup-
pressed by Muslim rulers, and puritanical Muslim
rulers occasionally ordered the persecution of
their Jewish and Christian subjects. They also

did not hesitate to take actions against dissident
Muslims, including Sunnis, as well as Shiis and
sometimes even Sufis. Despite these more con-
flict-laden encounters, Goitein and other scholars
of pre-modern Judeo-Muslim history have nev-
ertheless asserted that the Judaism of today was
largely formed in the context of Jewish-Muslim
interaction in the Middle East during the Middle
Ages. While this assertion begs further research,
it is significant that in 1492, when Ferdinand and
Isabella of Spain gave Jews the choice between
converting to Christianity or expulsion, most of
them migrated to lands that were under Muslim
rule. Seeing the benefits to be gained from Jew-
ish wealth and mercantile expertise, the rulers of
the Ottoman Empire welcomed Sephardic immi-
grants from Spain and Ashkcnazis from Europe.
Bolstered by these immigrants from the west, Jew-
ish communities in Istanbul, Edirne, Izmir, and
Salonika grew and prospered significantly under
the Ottomans. Although statistics are lacking, it
is likely that the majority of the world's Jewish
population lived under Muslim rule from the early
seventh century until the fragmentation of the
Ottoman Empire and the creation of the state of
Israel in the 20th century.

The Judeo-Islamic symbiosis deteriorated
greatly during the 18th century as the Ottoman
and Persian Safavid empires succumbed to foreign
incursions and internal disturbances. Muslim rul-
ers were unable to provide adequate protection
to Jewish communities, which became impov-
erished and vulnerable to attack by Christians,
especially during the 19th century, when Euro-
pean anti-Semitism was imported into the region.
European observers, including Jews, reported on
the decrepit living conditions of Jewish communi-
ties in eastern lands compared to their improved
status as educated citizens in Europe. As colonial
powers vied for influence in the Ottoman Empire,
they claimed the right to serve as protectors of
religious minorities living in them. France and
Russia intervened on behalf of Catholic and
Orthodox Christians, respectively. Britain devel-

Judgment Day 413

oped a special relationship with Ottoman Jewish
communities. Former dhimmi s became agents
who worked for the European colonial govern-
ments, which exacerbated interreligious tensions
among Muslims and non-Muslims.

Strong nationalist currents in Europe coupled
with growing anti-Semitic propaganda gave rise
to the Zionist movement among European Jews
in the late 19th century. The chief objective of the
Zionists was to establish a homeland for Jews in
Palestine, which had been part of the Ottoman
Empire, but became a British mandate territory
after World War 1. The Zionist cause won limited
British support and finally succeeded in creat-
ing a modern Jewish nation-state in 1948 in the
aftermath of the first Arab-lsraeli war. Israel was
founded primarily by European Jews, many of
whom had survived the horrors of the Holocaust,
but, once created, it encouraged immigration of
Jews from North Africa, the Arab Middle East,
and Iran. At the same time, nationalist currents in
these regions victimized the Jews, or made them
feel unsafe in the countries where they had lived
for centuries. Muslims appropriated many of the
anti-Semitic stereotypes that had circulated in
Europe and used them to legitimate their harsh
treatment of Jews. As a result, the Jewish popula-
tions of countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Syria,
Iraq, Yemen, and Iran seriously dwindled. Small
Jewish populations continue to exist in parts of
North Africa, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, but most
Middle Eastern Jews have emigrated to Israel,
Europe, or the Americas.

Today, Israel has achieved peace agreements
with Egypt and Jordan, and it has friendly rela-
tions with Turkey. Conflict continues, however,
between Israelis and Palestinians, with radical
Islamic groups becoming more influential in the
last 20 years. Israel is also at war with Shii militias
in Lebanon, especially Hizbullah. Despite these
conflicts and the heated polemics exchanged
between Israel's supporters and enemies, far-
sighted Jews and Muslims are exploring new
opportunities for dialogue in North America and

in Israel-Palestine. Such dialogue involves redis-
covering the Judeo-Muslim symbiosis of former
times as but one element in the articulation of a
more peaceful convivencia in the 21st century.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Christianity
and Islam; conversion; Ottoman dynasty; proph-
ets and prophecy; Sephardic Jews.

Further reading: S. D. Goitein. Jews and Arabs: Their
Contacts through the Ages (1974. Reprint, New York:
Dover Publications, 2005); Bernard Lewis, The Jews
of Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1984); Maria Rosa Mcnocal, The Ornament of the World:
How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture
of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Boston: Little, Brown,
2002); Gordon D. Newby, A History of the Jews of Arabia
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989);
E E. Peters, The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christi-
anity and Islam, 2d ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2006); Marilyn R. Waldman, Muslims and
Christians, Muslims and Jews: A Common Past, A Hopeful
Future (Columbus: The Islamic Foundation of Central
Ohio, 1992); Steven W. Wasserstrom. Between Muslim
and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).

Judgment Day

After belief in one god (Allah) the belief in a
final judgment, or Judgment Day, is a fundamen-
tal tenet of Islam. On that day, which marks the
end of the present world, all human beings will
be resurrected and judged on an individual basis
according to their righteousness or sinfulness.
The righteous will be rewarded with a blissful life
in paradise and sinners will experience the tor-
ments of the Fire (hell).

Before Islam's appearance, belief in a final judg-
ment had already become a widespread one in the
Middle Eastern-Mediterranean region, as seen in
the biblical and post-biblical writings of Jews and
Christians. References to the “day of the Lord''
when God would punish the wicked occur in
many of the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible

'Css*')

414 Judgment Day

(for example, Obad. 15; Amos 5:18-20; Zeph.
1:14-18). Isaiah uses the phrase “on that day" in
referring to God’s judgment (24:21). In the New
Testament the proclamation of a final judgment
is expressed frequently. The phrase “day of judg-
ment" occurs in the Gospel of Matthew (10:15;
1 1:22, 24, and 12:36) and in several of the epistles
(2 Pet. 2:9, 3:7; and 1 John 4:17), while the Pau-
line epistles use the phrase “day of our/the Lord
Jesus Christ’* (1 Cor. 1:8; 2 Cor. 1:14), indicating
that Judgment Day is identified with the second
coming of Jesus. The idea of a day of judgment
also appears in extra-biblical religious literature,
such as the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees,
the Revelation of Esdras, and the Apocalypse of 2
Baruch. Islamic visions of the endtimes developed
their own distinctive character in a seventh-cen-
tury milieu where beliefs in a last judgment were
in wide circulation.

Judgment Day is explicitly mentioned in the
Quran. The most common renderings of this
concept in Arabic arc yawm al-qiyama, “resur-
rection day," and yawm al-din, “judgment day."
Another common phrase, found especially in the
Medinan chapters, is al-yawm al-akhir, “the last
day." Synonyms for Judgment Day identified by
commentators include al-saa-a “the hour," yawm
al-fasl, “decision day," and yawm al-hisab, “day of
accounting." According to the Quran only God
knows when Judgment Day will come, but it may
be very soon (Q 21:1) and happen suddenly (Q
16:77; 6:31). The signs of the approaching judg-
ment arc vividly portrayed in the Meccan suras:
the seas will boil, mountains will move, the sun
will darken, stars will fall, the fires of hell will
be ignited, paradise will be brought near, the
trumpet will be blown; and graves overturned
(see, for example, Q 78; 81; 82). There is no set
sequence for these events, except that they antici-
pate the resurrection of the dead, their gathering
and standing before God (including angels and
jinn), and the unfolding of the books containing
the records of what individuals have done in their
lives. Those given their book in the right hand will

attain paradise, while those who receive it in their
left will go to the Fire. The Quran also speaks of a
weighing of good deeds against bad on a scale (for
example, Q 21:47). God will interrogate prophets
and angels about what they and their people have
done, and people will even be obliged to testify
against themselves for not heeding God's signs
(Q 6:130). The Quran also mentions the possibil-
ity of INTERCESSION, but only if God allows it (for
example, Q 2:254; 10:3).

The Quran's depictions of Judgment Day and
the afterlife inspired a large body of eschatologi-
cal literature that encompassed the hadith, mysti-
cism, THEOLOGY, philosophy, and poetry. One of
the issues addressed in this literature was whether
there was a bodily resurrection, or whether the
soul alone was resurrected. The consensus among
most Sunnis and Shiis was that body and soul
were conjoined for resurrection, although some
maintained that the resurrected body would be
different from the earthly one. Another issue was
whether there was a preliminary judgment after
DEATH, known as the “interrogation of the grave"
or “the torture of the grave." According to this
view, each human underwent a preliminary judg-
ment in the grave and experienced a preview of
his or her punishments or rewards until the final
judgment was pronounced. There was also specu-
lation about the place where the final judgment
would occur. Many asserted that Jerusalem was
where this would happen. However, the Muslim
theologian and mystic al-GHAZALl (d. 1111) lik-
ened the gathering of pilgrims at Arafat during
the hajj to the gathering of the resurrected before
God on Judgment Day.

See also angel; Antichrist; aya ; eschatology;
FUNERARY RITES; HOLY BOOKS; MAHDl; PROPHETS AND

prophecy; soul and spirit.

Further reading: Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,
The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife , Kitab dhikr
al-mawt wa-ma badahu. Book XL of The Revival of the
Religious Sciences, Ihya ulum al-Din. Translated by T. J.
Winter (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1995);

Junayd, Abu al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Junayd al-Khazzaz al-Qawariri al- 41 5

T. O’Shaughncssy, Muhammad's Thoughts on Death: A
Thematic Study of the Quranic Data (Leiden: E.J. Brill.
1969); Jane 1. Smith and Yvonne Haddad. The Islamic
Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1981).

Junayd, Abu al-Qasim ibn Muhammad
ibn al-Junayd al-Khazzaz al-Qawariri al-

(unknown-91 0) leading Sup master of Baghdad
whose “sober” understanding of mystical experience
won acceptance among conservative Sunni scholars
Al-Junayd was from the city of Baghdad during
the age of the Abbasid Caliphate. Although his
writings are available today only in the form of
letters and short treatises, he was often mentioned
and quoted in the works of other Sufis. He had
some knowledge of the legal sciences and it is
reported that he was also respected by philoso-
phers and theologians. The high regard in which
he was held is indicated by the titles given to him
by later writers: the Sayyid of the Religious Group
and Supreme Shaykh. His uncle was another
famous Sufi, Sari al-Saqati (d. ca. 867), a pious
merchant who spoke of the mutual love between
humans and God and of the spiritual stages on the
way to God.

Scholars have commented on the difficulties
posed by al-Junayd’s work in terms of his obscure
writing style, but they recognize that he was one
of the first to speak about the challenges faced
by Sufis in adhering to a life of ASCETICISM and
devotion to God. He is also remembered for his
explanation of the relation between baqa (abiding
in God) and Jana (annihilation in God). Instead of
accepting the idea that annihilation was the end
of self-existence, in contrast to the "intoxicated"
Sufis, he stated that by God's grace, "My anni-
hilation is my abiding,” and continued to state
paradoxically that God “annihilated me from both
my abiding and my annihilation" (quoted in Sells
254). Because al-Junayd's thoughts about ecstasy
and annihilation were considered moderate when
compared with those of the "intoxicated" Sufis,

Sufi tradition placed him in the forefront of the
"sober" Sufis. He taught that annihilation had
three stages: (1) containing the lower self through
the performance of self-less actions; (2) cutting
oneself off from "the sweet desserts and pleasures
of obedience;" and (3) attaining true existence in
God by annihilation through ecstasy. His under-
standing of the nature of affirming Gods unity
( TAWHID ) was also an important aspect of his
spiritual teachings. Al-Junayd held that this affir-
mation had four forms: (1) proclamation by the
common people that God was one; (2) fulfilling
the duties of worship and following the sharia by
the common people; (3) abolition of hopes and
fears by the elect so as to allow them to experience
perfect harmony in witnessing the reality of God;
and (4) return of the elect to the original state of
preexistence "as one was before one was,” without
outside attachments.

Mansur al-HALLAJ (d. 922) was one of al-
Junayd's most famous disciples, but al-Junayd
eventually rejected him because of controversial
utterances he made while in spiritual ecstasy. His
biographers say that al-Junayd made the pilgrim-
age to Mecca 30 times and that he died reciting
the Quran. His tomb was located in western Bagh-
dad, near those of his uncle Sari al-Saqati and the
famous hadith scholar and jurist Ahmad ibn Han-
bal (d. 855). Many Sufi tariqas (spiritual orders)
subsequently included al-Junayd in the genealo-
gies of spiritual masters that disciples must mem-
orize when they are initiated into them.

Sec also Allah; asceticism; baqa and fana;
Bistami, Abu Yazid al-; covenant; soul and spirit;
Sufism; tar/qa.

Further reading: Christopher Melchert, "The Transi-
tion from Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the
Ninth Century C.E.,” Studia Islam ica 83 (1996): 51-70;
Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975);
Michael Sells. Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi , Quran ,
Mi raj. Poetic , and Theological Writings (Mahwah, N.J.:
Paulist Press, 1996), 251-265.

justice 417

ing the treatment of orphans and the plight of the
poor. The Quran clearly evidences the urgency
of addressing issues that fall under the rubric of
socioeconomic or distributive justice, rebuking
those who have greedily consumed their inheri-
tance while having a greedy passion for wealth
(Q 89:19-20). Moreover, the enshrinement of
zakat (almsgiving) as the third pillar of practice
in Islam makes this duty integral to Muslim iden-
tity, effectively institutionalizing a “right" for the
needy and deprived to a share in the community's
wealth. In addition to this compulsory obliga-
tion, Muslims of sufficient means are expected to
practice voluntary charitable giving (sadaqa). The
Quran's ill-understood opposition to usury (riba)
further illustrates the attempt to deal with prob-
lems of distributive justice.

Historically, questions of political justice were
first broached in the Khariji opposition to the
Umayyad Caliphate (661-750). The Khawarij
invoked the doctrine of qadar (power; FREE will,
thus the corollary proposition that each indi-
vidual is responsible for his or her acts) against
the Umayyad rulers' attempt to legitimize their
rule through the principles of ijmaa (consensus,
agreement) and bayaa (oath of allegiance), forti-
fied with the theological doctrine of jabr (lit.,
compulsion; predestination; here in the sense
that Umayyad rule was seen as ordained by God).
The absolute justice of God was one of the five
tenets of Mutazili halam (theology), unremark-
able in itself until we learn that it was bound up
with debates over the nature of evil and injustice,
including the metaphysical and ethical scope of
man's free agency. The Mutazila even took to refer-
ring to themselves as the People of Justice (adl)
and Unity ( tawhid ). The pursuit and realization
of justice for the Mutazila was determined and
constrained by the powers of reason (aql).

“The Father of Arab Philosophy" and Islam's
first significant philosopher, Abu Yusuf Yaacub ibn
Ishaq al-Kindi (d. ca. 866) held justice to be the
central virtue owing to its balancing and coordi-
nating functions vis-a-vis other (principally clas-

sical Greek) virtues, thereby demonstrating the
integration of Peripatetic and Neoplatonic ideas
into a distinctively Islamic philosophy. Islam’s
first truly systematic philosopher, al-FARABi (ca.
870-950), envisioned the ideal Islamic polity
portioning such goods as security, wealth, honor,
and dignity according to a desert principle of
distributive justice. Rational justice, formulated
in terms of a social contract theory beholden to
Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Ethics , as well as
the Islamic sciences generally, was the center
point of Ibn Sina’s (Avicenna, 979-1037) politi-
cal scheme to secure the common welfare from
a pool of basic resources. For Muhammad Ibn
Rushd (Avcrroes, 1 126-98), justice was the sum
and highest of all virtues of man as a citizen of the
polity. Furthermore, it inheres in the fulfillment
of responsibilities and duties in a social division
of labor structured according to the standards and
strictures of philosophy (falsafa). While some vir-
tues, such as wisdom and courage, are class-spe-
cific, justice was pertinent to all citizens, provided
they performed the vocation for which they were
fitted “by nature.”

Justice in jurisprudential terms entails, in
the first instance, equal treatment of all before
the law (fiqh). With the sharia as lodestar
(recalling, with Abou El Fadl, that the sharia “is
God's will in an ideal and abstract fashion, but
the fiqh is the product of the human attempt to
understand God's will" [Abou El Fadl 321), both
ethics and law in Islam approach justice through
the doctrinal formula of “commanding right
and forbidding wrong" (al-amr bi'l-maaruf vva’I-
nahy an al-munkar). In short, fiqh is a system of
ethico-legal obligation formulated in imperative
(amr) and prohibitive ( nahy ) terms, with all
human actions exhaustively classified as manda-
tory (fard or wajib), encouraged (mustahabb or
mandub) y permissible (halal or rnubah ), discour-
aged ( makruh ), or forbidden (haram). Procedural
justice in Islam tends toward personalism rather
than corporatism and administrative principles
insofar as trust is placed in the "just judge" or

Kaaba

The Kaaba, also known as “the sacred house"
(Q 5:2, 97) is the most holy place in Islam. A
large cube-shaped building (approximately 50
feet high, 40 feet long, and 33 feet wide) made of
cut stone, it is situated in the plaza of the Grand
Mosque in Mecca. Its four corners point approxi-
mately to the four cardinal directions, with the
famous Black Stone inserted in its eastern corner.
The Kaaba is covered by a curtain and is empty
inside, except for lamps and inscriptions. A large,
ornately decorated door provides access to the
interior. Opposite the Kaaba’s northwest wall
is the Hijr, a detached semi-circular walled area
marking the place where Hagar and Ishmael are
believed to be buried. Nearby, opposite the north-
east side, is the Station of Abraham, and opposite
the eastern corner the sacred well of Zamzam.
Every day Muslims around the world face toward
the Kaaba when they pray; it is their QlBLA, or
PRAYER direction. Pilgrims who go to Mecca for the
hajj and the umra assemble around it in concentric
circles for prayer and must walk around it seven
times counterclockwise to fulfill the required rites
of pilgrimage. Muslim law also requires that an
animal should be turned toward the Kaaba when
it is slaughtered, and that a person should be laid
in the grave facing toward it.

The age of the Kaaba is disputed and its early
history shrouded by myths and legends. As is
often the case with living holy sites, archaeologi-
cal research is prohibited there. Based on Islamic
textual evidence, most scholars (Muslims and
non-Muslims) agree that the shrine was a place of
worship even before the historical appearance of
Islam in the seventh century. The Quran describes
it as “the first house established for humankind"
(Q 3:96) and as “the ancient house" (Q 22:29). In
the time of the Jahiliyya (the era before Muham-
mad), statues of gods and religious relics were
kept in it; sacrifices and pilgrimage rituals were
conducted there. Such evidence suggests that it
did not differ significantly from other temples that
had once been vital to the ancient civilizations of
the Middle East, including that of Yahweh-Elohim
in Jerusalem.

The Quran states that Abraham and Ishmael
first built it as a place for worship at Gods com-
mand (Q 2:125-128). However, Islamic literary
tradition embellished this brief quranic story by
saying that the original Kaaba had been created
at the beginning of time. According to one tra-
dition, it was a building made of sapphires that
God had sent down from paradise and placed on
earth directly under his throne. He had an angel
bring Adam from India, where he lived after being

419

420 kafir

expelled from paradise, in order to perform the
first pilgrimage rites. Other accounts credit Adam
with being the first to actually build the Kaaba.
According to this tradition, in the time of Noah,
God raised it up to heaven when the great flood
came. Abraham then later built a second Kaaba
with his son at Gods command and inaugurated
the hajj rituals for all people to perform.

Muslim historical sources, such as Ibn Ishaqs
Life of the Prophet (mid-eighth century), indicate
that the Quraysh tribe rebuilt the Kaaba around
the year 605, some five years before Muhammad
began his career as a prophet. Muhammad was
credited with having resolved a dispute among
the Quraysh clans over who would install the
Black Stone, signaling his close association with
the sanctuary and growing reputation as a leader.
This building was destroyed during a civil war,
then rebuilt and enlarged by Abd Allah ibn al-
Zubayr (r. 683-692), an opponent of the Umayyad
Caliphate who had gained control of Mecca.
When the Umayyads took back control of the city,
they restored it as it had been in Muhammad's
time. In the ensuing centuries it has undergone
numerous restorations and repairs, the latest by
the government of Saudi Arabia near the end of
the 20th century.

A cover ( kiswa ) of black cloth made in Saudi
Arabia is placed over the Kaaba annually. It is
embroidered in gold and silver thread with verses
from the Quran. When the cover is replaced each
year, the Saudi government places sections of the
old one in its embassies, or gives them to foreign
governments, international organizations, and
important people. Also, many Muslims hang pic-
tures of the Kaaba in their homes and businesses.
In Egypt it is one of the motifs used in murals that
people paint on the homes of hajj is, pilgrims who
have gone to Mecca.

See also Adam and Eve; Arabian religions, pre-

ISLAMIC; MOSQUE.

Further reading: Juan Eduardo Campo, The Other Sides
of Paradise: Explorations into the Religious Meanings of

Domestic Space in Islam (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press. 1991); G. R. Hawting, “The Origins of
the Muslim Sanctuary in Mecca." In Studies in the First
Century of Islamic Society, edited by G. H. A. Juynboll,
23-47 (Carbondale and Edwardsvillc: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1982); F E. Peters, The Hajj: The Mus-
lim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 3-19; Ahmad
ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi qisas al -
anbiya, or “Lives of the Prophets .” Translated by William
M. Brinner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002), 145-154.

kafir (Arabic: unbeliever, disbeliever;
infidel; ungrateful)

Religions often provide maps for differentiat-
ing insiders from outsiders. In the monotheistic
confessional religions of Christianity and Islam
important distinctions arc made between people
on the basis of what they believe and do not
believe. Moreover, these distinctions have a bear-
ing on notions of salvation and a person's fate in
the afterlife.

In Islam the word kafir and related words
based on the Arabic root k-f-r arc usually used to
designate disbelievers or “infidels'* (a Latin term
originally used by medieval Christians), or those
who fall outside the community of true people of
faith (muminin and muslimin). This distinction is
one of the essential ones used in the Quran, where
kafir or the plural kafirun/kafirin is used 134
times (its verbal cognates occur about 250 times;
the verbal noun kufr | unbelief, infidelity] occurs
37 times). In many cases “disbeliever" is used
polemically against the idolaters of Mecca who
were opponents of Muhammad (d. 632) and the
early Muslim community (umma). It is a word that
polarizes groups of people (distinguishing “us”
versus “them "), helps create unity in the com-
munity against outsiders, and mobilizes insiders
to take action accordingly. The kinds of action
such polarization induces are diverse, including
promoting adherence to quranic commandments
and prohibitions, avoiding unbelievers, and tak-

kafir 421

ing defensive or offensive action (jihad) against
them as enemies.

One of the earliest quranic statements on this
subject is found in the sura known as Al-Kafirun
(Q 109), which declares, “Say: O disbelievers! 1
do not worship what you worship, and you are
not worshipping what I worship. . . . You have
your religion (din) and 1 have my religion."
These verses, which are traditionally associated
with Muhammad's Meccan revelations, are often
quoted in support of religious tolerance, but
despite this interpretation, their effect is divi-
sive. With the development of the early Muslim
community, the Quran elaborated in more detail
the identities of the disbelievers. They included
those who practiced IDOLATRY, did not accept the
absolute oneness of God, denied that Muhammad
was a prophet, ignored Gods commandments
and “signs" (singular aya), and rejected belief in
a resurrection and final judgment. In some Medi-
nan verses of the Quran, believing Muslims were
instructed to avoid association with disbelievers
(for example, Q 3:28, 1 18), but other Medinan
passages actually called upon them to “exert
themselves or fight against them (for example, Q
2:190-193). Disbelievers were even declared to
be the intimate friends of Satan (Q 4:76). In the
afterlife, moreover, disbelievers could expect to
suffer severe punishment in the Fire (for example,
Q 8:50, 21:39).

The Quran referred to Jews and Christians
as People of the Book, or “those who have been
given the book"; that is, members of religious
communities who believed in God, his prophets,
and the earlier scriptures of the Torah and the
Gospel. As a consequence of their proximity to
Islam, Muslims were permitted to eat the meat of
animals slaughtered by them, and Muslim men
were permitted to marry their women. However,
reflecting Muhammad's contacts with Jews and
Christians after the Hijra in 622, as well as divi-
sions and opposition in Medina, the Medinan
suras of the Quran began to query the People of
the Book about why they did not believe God's

signs and why they concealed the truth when they
should have known better (Q 3:70-71). Jews, as
People of the Book, were condemned for their
disbelief in God’s signs and killing of some of the
prophets, including Jesus (for example, Q 4:154-
157). Christians were accused of kufr (unbelief)
because they believed in the Trinity and Jesus as
the son of God, which the Quran considered to
be idolatry (for example, Q 5:73, 171). Above all,
Jews and Christians were faulted for not believing
in the prophethood of Muhammad, even though
they believed in other prophets. Although they
were usually regarded in a different light from the
Meccan idolaters, some verses equated the People
of the Book with the polytheists and promised
them an eternity in hell, except for those who
believed and did good works (Q 98).

Other meanings for words based on the Arabic
root k-f-r are to reject the truth (for example, Q
35:14) and to be ungrateful, especially to God for
his blessings (for example, Q 16:55; 30:34). The
ideas of rejection and ingratitude, therefore, were
linked in quranic discourse to that of disbelief.

The word takfir, based on the same Arabic
root, was introduced in the post-quranic period
with the meaning “to accuse another of disbelief
and infidelity." This was first done by the Kha-
warij, a sectarian group that accused any Muslim
who committed a major sin of being a kafir. With
the creation of Muslim empires comprised of large
non-Muslim majorities, absolute condemnation of
outsiders as disbelievers contradicted the priori-
ties of maintaining the social order under Muslim
rule. People of the Book, therefore, were given
certain protections under Islamic law. According
to the sharia, they were dhinwiis (protected peo-
ples). This occurred not only in the Middle East,
but also in South Asia, where Hindus were also
considered dhimmis under the rule of the Delhi
Sultanate and the Mughal dynasty. Accusations
of infidelity were directed against non-Muslims
living in lands that were not under Muslim con-
trol (dar al-harb) and against Muslims who in
one way or another diverged from the normative

^ 422 kaiam

beliefs and practices of the UX1MA. Even though
condemned in the HADITH, kafir became a polemi-
cal term used more by Muslim elites against other
Muslims than against non-Muslims during the
Middle Ages. Among those accused of unbelief
were leading Muslim philosophers such as Ibn
Sina (d. 1037), “intoxicated" Sufis such as Man-
sur al-HALLAj (d. 922), and members of various
branches of the Shia.

Drawing on this tradition and promoting a
rigid doctrine of absolute monotheism, the central
Arabian revivalist Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab
(d. 1798) called any Muslim who failed to enact
the requirements of believing in one God a kafir.
This included Muslims who practiced fortune-
telling, magic, astrology, wearing amulets, exces-
sive mourning of the dead, Sufi shrine pilgrimage,
and who followed Shii teachings about the Imams.
The conquest of much of the Arabian Peninsula
by the Saudis in alliance with the followers of
Ibn Abd al-Wahhabs teachings, Saudi control of
Islam's most sacred centers in Mecca and Medina,
and oil revenues have given significant weight
to the influence of the Wahhabi understanding
of Islam and disbelief well beyond the borders of
Saudi Arabia.

In the modern period Islamist ideologists such
as Abu al-Ala Mawdudi (d. 1979) of Indo-Pakistan
and Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) of Egypt have extended
the polemics of unbelief to include condemna-
tions of Western-style secularism and the mate-
rialist understandings of society. They considered
the 20th century to be Jahiliyya time, recalling
the era that preceded Islam's appearance when
unbelief prevailed. The main difference between
the jahiliyya of ancient Arabia and today was that
the modern jahilyiya was one when Muslim soci-
eties were being corrupted by Western laws and
governments based on Western models that vio-
lated the SHARIA. Mawdudi and Qutb called upon
a faithful corps of true Muslims, what Qutb called
a “unique quranic generation," not only to reject
the modern jahiliya, but to conduct jihad against
it to bring about its destruction. They quoted the

Quran in support of their radical ideology, espe-
cially the verse, “Those who judge not (or rule
not) by what God has revealed are the kafirs " (Q
5:44). Even though rejected by most Muslims, this
ideology was used by the Jihad Group of Egypt to
justify the assassination of Egyptian president
Anwar a 1 -Sadat in 1981 and it inspired radical
movements in many Muslim countries during the
1980s and 1990s. USAMA BIN LADIN used it in his
fatwas and speeches against the United States and
Israel, both of whom he accused of invading and
occupying sacred Muslim lands.

Lastly, the term Kaffir is derived from kafir. It was
originally used by Arabs for the indigenous peoples
of Africa, then adopted by European slave traders.
Eventually it became a racial slur, used particularly
by whites in South Africa against the blacks.

Sec also apostasy; bjdaa; blasphemy; Christian-
ity and Islam; crime and punishment; dhimmi; her-
esy; jihad movements; Judaism and Islam; prophets
and prophecy; Shiism; Takfir wa-Hijra; Wah-
habism; ziyara.

Further reading: Peter Antes, “Relations with Unbe-
lievers in Islamic Theology." In We Believe in One God:
The Experience of God in Christianity and Islam, edited
by Anncmaric Schimmcl and Abdoldjavad Falaturi,
101-111 (New York: Seabury Press, 1979); Toshihiko
Izutsu, Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Quran (Mon-
treal: McGill University Press, 1966); Marilyn Wald-
man, “The Development of the Concept of kufr," Journal
of the American Oriental Society 88 (1968): 442-455.

kaiam Sec theology.

Karbala

A shrine city in Iraq, about 62 miles southwest
of Baghdad, Karbala has an approximate popula-
tion of 575,000. It is considered the holiest city
to Shiis, after Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and
Najaf (site of the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib's tomb).
Karbala is a sacred space to the Shia because it

Karbala 423

is the DEATH and burial site of the third Imam,
Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of the prophet Muham-
mad by his daughter, Fatima (known by the Shia
as al-Zahra, “the radiant one"), and cousin Ali ibn
Abi Talib. On the 10th day (Ashura) of the Islamic
lunar month Muharram 61 a.h. (October 9-10,
680 c.E.) Husayn was killed along with most of
the men of his household by the forces of Yazid,
the son of Muawiya, founder of the Umayyad
Caliphate (661-750). The women and CHILDREN in
Husayns company were taken into captivity. The
Shia understand this event as martyrdom (sJia-
hada)> which is both the spiritual and moral cen-
ter of their theology and ritual life, giving force to
doctrines of sanctification by martyrdom and the
redemptive quality of suffering. The city grew up
around the tombs of Husayn and his half-brother
Abbas ibn Ali, who was also killed and buried
at Karbala. It came to be known as Mashhad al-
Husayn (the place of Husayns martyrdom).

Husayns shrine is a focus of Shii pilgrimage
( ziyara ) from all over the Muslim world, where
pilgrims seek to obtain divine blessings (baraka)
and saintly intercession ( wasila , shafaa) by touch-
ing the sarcophagus (which now stands sur-
rounded by an elaborate brass grill). Elderly Shiis
often travel there waiting to die, as many Jews and
Christians want to die and be buried in Jerusalem,
or Hindus to be cremated in the Indian holy city
of Varanasi (Banaras). The actual soil of Karbala
is considered blessed, and Shiis carry a piece of
Karbala with them, literally turba Husayniyya (or
mohr-i namaz)- This is a small light red or brown
clay tablet made of Karbala soil, which symbol-
izes the blood of Husayns martyrdom, on which
Shiis rest their foreheads when performing salat
(daily prayers). Symbolically, all space becomes
transformed through ritual and religious material
culture into Karbala, as Shiis often say, “every day
is Ashura, and every place is Karbala."

The Shii l/mma invokes Karbala and renews its
experience of the redemptive suffering of Imam
Husayn by commemorating his “passion" and
martyrdom annually with a cycle of rituals and

The Shrine of Imam Husayn in Karbala, Iraq
(AP Photos/Hussein Malta)

public demonstrations of devotion up to the 10th
of Muharram (Ashura). Each country and cul-
ture of significant Shii population (the Twelvers,
Ismailis, and Zaydis of Lebanon, Bahrain, and
Yemen; the Twelvers of Iran and Iraq; and the
Twelvers and Ismaili Bohras and Dawudis of
northern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well
as diverse transplanted communities of the Shia
in North America and the Caribbean) demon-
strate its devotion to Husayns living memory by
mourning him afresh every year wherever they are
with public processionals (called masiras , or lam-
entation processions) and performances. These
include leading Husayns caparisoned HORSE (or

424 Karimov, Islam Abdughanievich

displaying a representation of it), carrying such
traditional items as mock coffins, poles topped
by the five-fingered hand (representing the five
members of the ahl al-bayt: Muhammad, Fatima,
Ali, Hasan, and Husayn), displaying banners
showing scenes from Husayns life, and carrying
scale models of the tomb of Husayn at Karbala
(called naql or darih ) on a palanquin; perform-
ing “passion plays” ( taaziyci in Iran or shabih in
Iraq and Lebanon) reenacting the martyrdom at
Karbala; participating in collective rites of self-
flagellation (latam) using chains (zanjir-zani)
and swords (qumma-zani) or, more recently, razor
blades tapped on the forehead, and rhythmically
beating the chest in unison (sina-zani). Celebrants
set up a group of visual symbols for the events of
Muharram, an Imamzada. There are performances
of elegiac poetry and songs of devotion and vener-
ation for Husayn and the ahl al-bayt in the home,
and public recitals ( rawda-khani ) of the suffer-
ings and martyrdoms of all the Imams, especially
Husayn, at gatherings (majlis/majalis) in buildings
known as Husayniyyas in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon,
imambaras in India, and matam s in Bahrain. For
many modern Sunni Muslims, particularly those
in the West, Shii religious sensibility has always
seemed extreme, even a bit frightening and repel-
lent. Thus, some contemporary Shiis have moved
away from Ashura rituals of “bloodletting" and
even the bloodless flagellation of rhythmic chest
beating, which function to evoke the “passion"
and suffering of Imam Husayn, and have recently
allowed the painless substitute of giving blood to
the Red Crescent (the Islamic equivalent of the
Red Cross).

The ongoing impact of the events of Karbala
and their annual commemoration during Ashura
lie in Shiism’s ideology of martyrdom, self-sacri-
fice, and redemptive suffering, and a strong direc-
tive toward community service and volunteerism.
The moral example of Karbala, of resisting over-
whelming evil even unto death, has illuminated
Shii life experience through the centuries whether
in the context of oppression of the minority Shii

umma by the Sunni majority or its oppression
by non-Muslim forces, as in Israels invasions
and bombings of southern Lebanon. Recent Shii
religio-political movements, such as Hizbullah,
continuously interpret their contemporary expe-
riences of persecution and suffering within the
trope of Husayns passion and martyrdom at
Karbala. Their sacrifice of blood and sweat, like
Husayns, is quite literal: “This is our Karbala, this
is our Husayn, we live on, Karbala lives on in the
Lebanese Resistance" (quoted in Deeb 159).

See also holidays; Husayniyya; shiism.

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Further reading: Kamran Scot Aghaie, The Women of
Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses in
Modern Shii Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2005); Lara Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and
Public Policy in Shii Lebanon (Princeton, N.J.: Princ-
eton University Press, 2006); Elizabeth W. Fcrnea,
Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village,
(New York: Doublcday, 1989), 216-250; Sycd Akbar
llydcr. Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian
Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006);
Mcir Litvak, Shii Scholars of Nineteenth-Century Iraq:
The Ulama of Najaf and Karbala (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1998); Sycd-Mohsin Naquvi,
The Tragedy of Karbala (Princeton, N.J.: Mohscna
Memorial Foundation, 1992); David Pinault, Horse of
Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in India (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 2000); Vernon J. Schubel, “Karbala as
Sacred Space among North American Shia: ‘Every Day
Is Ashura. Everywhere Is Karbala.'" In Making Muslim
Space in North America and Europe, edited by Barbara
Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996): 186-203.

Karimov, Islam Abdughanievich

(1938- ) president of Uzbekistan

Islam Karimov came to power as first secretary of
the Communist Party of Uzbekistan in 1989 and
was named president of the Uzbek Soviet Social-
ist Republic in 1990. Shortly after Uzbekistan’s

' 4s:5 ^ 426 Kashmir

of folk, Hindu, and Buddhist elements. Kashmir’s
ethnic composition is diverse, consisting mainly
of Turks, Mongols, Afghans, and Indo-Aryans.

Kashmir was home to competing Hindu and
Buddhist regimes prior to the arrival of the first
Muslims. Islamization occurred gradually over a
number of centuries. Some accounts indicate that
it may have occurred by conquest and forced con-
version, others that it was accomplished through
Sufi missionaries. Most likely a combination
of different processes was involved. The first
Muslims appear to have arrived as Turkish war-
riors imported from Afghanistan or Central Asia
by local Hindu rulers during the 12th century.
The European explorer Marco Polo (d. 1325)
encountered “Saracens” (a medieval term for
Arabs and Muslims) who worked as butchers in
the Kashmir Valley. The Mongol conquests in the
Middle East during the 13th and 14th centuries
brought an influx of immigrants and refugees
from Persia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, many
of whom were Sufis, ULAMA, and artisans. Bulbul
Shah (also known as Sharaf al-Din), a member of
the Suhrawardi Sufi Order, is said to have been
responsible for the conversion of Rinchana, a
Buddhist prince from Ladakh, to Islam early in
the 14th century. Rinchana is recognized as being
Kashmir’s first sultan. A number of other Sufis
and religious scholars immigrated from Herat,
Khorasan, Samarqand, and Bukhara. The artisans
came from the same regions and introduced the
crafts of paper making, papier-mache, bookbind-
ing, woodworking, and carpet weaving for which
Kashmir is still known.

Local sultans provided support for religious
scholars and mosques, thus laying the founda-
tions for the creation of a permanent Muslim
presence and ongoing influence over the local
non-Muslim communities. One of the sultans,
Sikandar (r. 1389-1413), was reported to have
imposed the sharia on his subjects, destroyed
Hindu temples, and forced them to convert to
Islam, but these reports in the chronicles may
have been exaggerated, as they were in chronicles

about Muslim rulers in India. On the other hand
Sikandars heir, Zayn al-Abidin (r. 1420-70) was
remembered for having abolished the JIZYA (a tax
on non-Muslims) and supported temple-building
projects. Hindu Brahmans, later known as Pan-
dits, complained about the Islamic influence that
was spreading through Kashmir, but they learned
Persian, the administrative language, and accepted
appointments as scribes and administrators in
order to retain their higher status in the Hindu
community. The confluence of Islamic and Hindu
religious ideas did not occur among Brahmans
and sultans, but among lower caste Hindus and
Sufis. This is epitomized by the Rishi movement,
which arose during the 15th century in rural
Kashmir. The Rishis, who took their name from a
Sanskrit word for the ancient sages of the Hindu
Vedas, were closely identified with two local
saint-poets — Lalla Ded, a female ascetic devoted
to the Hindu god Shiva, and Shaykh Nur al-Din
Nurani (d. 1438), a Sufi who considered Lalla
Ded his teacher and a second Rabia al-Adawiyya
(the famed woman saint of Basra). Members of
the movement were vegetarians, abstained from
marriage, and often appeared as yogis. Their egali-
tarian outlook, spirituality, and charitable activi-
ties made them popular among the commoners.
Nur al-Dins shrine at Charar-i Sharif, near the
Kashmiri capital of Srinagar, was an important
regional pilgrimage center until 1995, when it was
destroyed in a clash between Kashmiri rebels and
Indian troops.

In modern times Kashmir has become a flash-
point for conflict between India and Pakistan
that has cost dearly in terms of human suffering,
loss of life, and economic damage. The Kashmiri
conflict is a consequence of the 1947 partition of
India into two states — India and Pakistan. One
hundred years previously, in 1846, the British had
established a Hindu monarchy to rule Kashmir by
selling the right to rule to Gulab Singh (d. 1857)
and his heirs, making them the Maharajas of
Kashmir. Muslims were subject to excessive taxes
in order to pay for the sale and fund the expenses

Khadija bint Khuwaylid ibn Asad 427

of the government. At the time of partition Kash-
miris were divided about what to do with their
country. Some wanted to be joined to India, some
wanted to be joined to Pakistan, others wished
to remain independent. Maharaja Hari Singh (r.
1925-47), although inclined to remain indepen-
dent, agreed to have his state incorporated into
India and fled. This happened after thousands
of Kashmiri Muslims had been massacred and
Pakistan began allowing forces into the area to
protect them. India responded by sending in its
troops and registering a complaint at the United
Nations against Pakistan's “aggression." Pakistan
protested and assumed control of what it called
Azad Kashmir. Subsequent mediation efforts to
resolve the dispute between India and Paki-
stan concerning Kashmir's autonomy have failed.
The Indian government under Jawaharlal Nehru's
leadership negotiated with Shaykh Muhammad
Abd Allah (d. 1982) and his National Conference,
a Kashmiri secular nationalist organization, to
grant Kashmir special territorial status in India.
The Indian government removed him from office
in 1953 and imprisoned him for 11 years because
he would not surrender the right of Kashmiri self-
determination.

Since 1987 there has been an escalation in
violence as a result of the failure to arrive at
an acceptable political solution to the Kash-
miri question and economic stagnation. The
bloodshed has been exacerbated by the growing
strength of religious radicalism among Muslims
and Hindus. Hindu nationalist organizations
such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS,
National Volunteers Organization) and its politi-
cal wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, Indian
People's Party), consider Muslims to be a threat
to the nation and want Kashmir to be ruled by an
Indian Hindu government. They refuse to allow
any real autonomy to the Kashmiri Muslims. The
government of Pakistan supported the emergence
of an armed Kashmiri resistance, consisting of
the secularist Jammu and Kashmir Liberation
Front and the Islamist Hizb al-Mujahidin (Party

of Muslim Warriors). Another militant Islamist
group seeking to bring an end to Indian rule in
Kashmir is the Lashkar-i Tayyiba (Army of the
Righteous), which was founded in Afghanistan
in 1990, but is now based in Lahore. It has con-
ducted attacks in India and Pakistan, as well as
Kashmir. The violence has involved extensive
human rights violations committed by all com-
batants, including armed attacks on civilians,
torture, rape, “disappearances," and extrajudicial
killings. War nearly broke out in 1999 between
India, led by a newly elected BJP government,
and Pakistan, led by a military dictator (Pervcz
Musharraf), when militants and Pakistani troops
threatened to block the road connecting Srinagar
to Ladakh at Kargil. The threat of a nuclear war
between the two countries raised international
concern. At the urging of the United States
Pakistan withdrew its forces, thus diffusing the
situation.

Sec also Buddhism and Islam; Hinduism and
Islam; human rights; jihad movements; Nepal.

Further reading: Ainslie Embree, “Kashmir: Has
Religion a Role in Making Peace?" In Faith-Based
Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik, edited by Douglas
Johnston. 33-75 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2003): Mohammad Ishaq Khan, “The Impact of Islam
on Kashmir in the Sultanate Period." In India's Islamic
Traditions , 711-1750, edited by Richard M. Eaton,
342-362 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Raju
G. C. Thomas, Perspectives on Kashmir (Boulder, Colo.:
Wcstview Press, 1992).

Kazakhstan See Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Khadija bint Khuwaylid ibn Asad

(ca. 555-61 9) prosperous merchant and first wife of
Muhammad , she was the first to accept Islam

A wealthy Meccan merchant of the Quraysh tribe,
Khadija owned a large caravan that traded goods
in Syria. Around the year 595 she hired Muham-

- 4 = 5 ^

430 Khan, Inayat

on Failaka Island off the coast of Kuwait, and in
Sri Lanka at Kataragama, Bosra (Syria), Jerusalem,
Iraq, and Samarkand (Uzbekistan). Not all Mus-
lims accept Khadir as a saint or prophet, however.
Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), chief ideologist of militant
Islam, argued that the connection between Kha-
dir and the “servant" mentioned in the Quran
was mere conjecture, and that the figure was to
be understood in the literal sense as a righteous
(salih) man, not a prophet or saint.

See also batin ; boat; folklore; prophets and

PROPHECY.

Further reading: Gordon Darnell Newby, The Making
of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biog-
raphy of Muhammad (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1989), 182-188; John Renard, All the
King's Falcons: Rumi on Prophets and Revelation (New
York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 83-86;
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Thalabi, Arais al-majalis fi
qisas al-anhiya, or “ Lives of the Prophets." Translated by
William M. Brinner, (Leiden: E.J. Brill. 2002), 361-382.

Khan, Inayat (1882-1927) first Sufi leader to
spread Sufism in America and Europe; founder of the
Sufi Order of the West

Inayat Khan was born in India and grew up in a
musical family. At the age of 12 he left home to pur-
sue a life of music and devotion, traveling around
India and working in various environments, such
as serving as the court musician for the Nizam, or
ruler, of Hyderabad. From there Khan was initiated
into the Nizami branch of the Chisti Sufi Order,
a very popular order of Muslim mystics in India.
Khan blended Hindu and Muslim philosophy,
working under masters from both traditions. He
was instructed to spread Sufism in the Americas
and Europe, where he spent most of his adult years,
and he left for New York in 1910. In his travels he
aimed to bring universal harmony between East
and West by introducing Sufi concepts.

Khan lectured for some time at Columbia Uni-
versity and then traveled across America attract-

ing initiates. In New York he met Ora Ray Baker,
whom he would marry in 1913 after moving to
England. In 1916 Khan founded the Sufi Order
in London and shortly after began a quarterly
magazine, Sufism. In the 1920s Khan visited the
United States several times to tour the country,
lecture, and continue to attract initiates. He died
in 1927 in India. Following his death, Khans
son, Vilayat Khan (1916-2004), still a youth, was
appointed leader of the order. However some initi-
ates decided to accept the mentorship of the Sufi
leader, Mcher Baba (1894-1969). In the 1960s
Vilayat Khan actively took over leadership of the
Sufi Order of the West in America. The order
sponsors a variety of activities, including heal-
ing seminars, retreats, and psychotherapy. Inayat
Khan's teachings are available in several collec-
tions that bring together his essays and lectures,
such as The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of
Hazrat Inayat Khan.

See also Europe; Nizam al-Din Awliya; Sufism.

Mehnaz Sahibzada

Further reading: Wil van Beck, Hazrat Inayat Khan:
Master of Life, Modern Sufi Mystic (New York: Vantage
Press, 1983); Inayat Khan, The Heart of Sufism: Essen-
tial Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Boston: Shambhala
Publications, 1999); Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and
Present, East and West: The Life, Teaching and Poetry
of Jalal-al-Din Rumi (Boston: Oncworld Publications,
2000); Jane I. Smith, Islam in America (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999).

kharaj (Arabic)

The kharaj was a tax levied by the Islamicate
state, generally on the land, as opposed to a poll
tax, or jizya. It was once thought that the distinc-
tion between the land tax and poll tax was clear
cut and absolute; however, numerous historical
studies have shown conclusively that, throughout
Islamic history, the terms kharaj and jizyei were
used interchangeably. As it is formulated in the

Khawarij 431

Umayyad period (seventh to eighth centuries),
however, it seems that the term kharcij was used
to designate land conquered militarily rather than
taken by treaty, and therefore to be permanently
taxed at a rate higher than would apply to other
lands. This would become especially important
with increasing conversion to Islam, which might
have threatened the fiscal stability of the state.
Until the modern period a tax on the land was
the most important source of revenue for most
Islamicate governments.

During and after the first Arab-lslamic con-
quests in the seventh century, conquered lands
were sometimes distributed to the Muslim con-
querors, and these lands were not subject to the
kharaj but to the considerably lower taxation of
zakat, technically alms, but collected as a tax
from Muslim subjects. As the pace of conversion
to Islam increased in the following centuries, it
would have been financially ruinous to allow
converts to pay the lower zakat rate rather than
the higher rate originally paid by the conquered
peoples. Therefore, it was likely in the third
century of Islam, when Islamic law (the sharia)
itself was entering its maturity and, coinciden-
tally, conversion to Islam was increasing, that
the jurists codified the definition of kharaj as a
tax imposed on lands conquered militarily. In
principle, such land would always be taxed at the
higher rate, regardless of the religious disposition
of its cultivator.

Nonetheless, the reality of taxation varied
widely. Methods of computing the kharaj were
inconsistent. The tax might be collected in pro-
duce or in money, and it often amounted to one-
third of the land's income. Worse, perhaps, for
the peasants was the leeway allowed, especially
in times of weak central control, to the tax collec-
tors, who could impose fees of their own, which
might exceed the kharaj itself. In cases where the
kharaj was overly burdensome, peasants might
flee the land. Because the tax was generally levied
on a collective body such as a village, however, it
would not be easily reduced in case of disaster or

of flight from the land. In effect, the only way to
escape the tax was to leave the land, but this did
not reduce the tax that the remaining cultivators
had to pay. While the rulers could cancel the land
tax in times of famine or during failed harvests,
they did so at their discretion.

Kharaj per se is no longer collected in Mus-
lim countries, although farmers are still taxed
by stales. The end of kharaj is not very clearly
demarcated in Iran and India. The British began
to reform the tax system in the late 18th century
in India, whereas kharaj in Iran continued to be
collected into the 20th century. The Ottoman
Empire abolished the kharaj and jizya in 1856 as
part of the Tanzimat reforms by which citizenship
began to replace the communal model of societal
organization.

See also agriculture; colonialism; Umayyad
Caliphate.

John Iskander

Further reading: Fred Donner, “Review of Studies in the
Genesis and Early Development of the Caliphal Taxation
System Journal of Near Eastern Studies 51 (January
1992): 63-65; Ann Lambton, Landlord and Peasant
in Persia (London: Oxford University Press, 1953);
Hosscin Modarrcssi Tabatabai, Kharaj in Islamic Law
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983); A. Ben Shemesh, Taxation in
Islam. 3 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1958. 1965, 1969).

Khawarij (Kharijites)

The Khawarij were the first sectarian movement
in Islamic history. They emerged in 657 C.E. at the
battle of Siffin, a site on the Euphrates between
Syria and Iraq, where the caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib
( d. 661) was fighting to assert his authority over
the recalcitrant governor of Syria, Muawiya. After
Ali's decision to arbitrate an end to the dispute, a
group of his previous supporters withdrew from
his ranks, taking as their watchword “Only God
can judge" (i.e., God, not man, decides human
affairs), and declaring their opposition to both

' 4s5 ^ 432 Khilafat Movement

Ali and Muawiya's right to rule. Based on their
decision to separate from the community of Mus-
lims, this seceding faction came to be known as
the Khawarij or, literally in Arabic, “those who
go out.” The Khawarij's initial opposition to Ali
and Muawiya quickly developed into a more far-
reaching protest against Muslim leadership in
general and the corruption of Muslim society, and
this protest took a very violent form. According
to the Khawarij, those deviating from (Khariji)
Islam became grave sinners whose Muslim status
and life were forfeit. The Khawarij felt obliged to
purge the community of sinners who jeopardized
the spiritual good of the whole. The means of
purifying the community became a subject of seri-
ous debate among Khawarij, leading to infighting
and further sectarian splits. The most infamous
subsect, the Azariqa, determined that the wives
and children of grave sinners were subject to
death. The most moderate subsect, the Ibadiyya,
condemned grave sinners as hypocrites but toler-
ated them within the community of Muslims. The
Ibadiyya, then, were sectarian or heretical due to
their beliefs, not their actions, which accounts for
the fact that they arc the only Khariji faction to
survive until the present day.

While the diversity and radical independence
of Khariji subsects prevents a clear articulation
of their common beliefs and practices, they seem
to have agreed on several key issues that distin-
guished them from Sunnis. First, they held a pur-
ist view of the caliph and the office he occupied:
moral or religious infractions nullified a person's
right to rule. At the same time, however, the Kha-
warij affirmed the equality of all believing men,
permitting anyone to rise to the position of caliph,
unlike the Sunnis who restricted the office to
members of the tribe of Muhammad, the QURAYSH.
Second, and related to the first, they rejected the
idea that FAITH, not works, determined one's right-
ful membership in the community of believers.
As a result, the community became the locus of
charisma and purity, and the training ground for
potential leaders.

Khariji uprisings throughout the seventh and
ninth centuries served as a constant reminder
of the limits to Sunni authority and legitimacy,
which in turn provoked Sunni thought and propa-
ganda, including discourse on the Khawarij. Some
medieval Sunni sources portray the Khawarij as
pious but well-intentioned Muslims whose moral
zealotry compromised their ability to live peace-
fully within society; most maintain that Khariji
piety and purity were a cover for more blatant
political interests. By the year 1000 C.E., historical
references to the Khawarij take on a generic mean-
ing of “rebels." In modern Arab Muslim societies,
the name Khawarij has been used to anathematize
those who use religion to justify political violence,
such as the assassins of Egyptian president Anwar
al-SADAT (1918-81).

See also heresy; kafir ; Sunnism; theology.

Jeffrey T. Kenney

Further reading: Ignaz Goldziher, Ini rod net ion to Islamic
Theology and Law. Translated by Andras and Ruth Ham-
ori (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981);
Jeffrey T. Kenney, Muslim Rebels: The Kharijites and the
Politics of Extremism in Egypt (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2006); Michael G. Morony, Iraq after the
Muslim Conquest (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1984); Julius Wellhausen, The Religio-Political
Factions in Early Islam. Translated by R. C. Ostle and S.
M. Walzer, edited by R. C. Ostle (New York: American
Elsevier Publishing Company, 1975).

Khilafat Movement (also known as the
Caliphate Movement)

The 1919-24 movement by Muslims in India
to advance the Ottoman SULTAN as the CALIPH
(Arabic: khalifa) of all Muslims. This movement
demonstrated Indian Muslim pan-1slamism, rep-
resented an attempt to mobilize the diverse body
of Indian Muslims using the symbols of Islam and
the ancient office of the CALIPHATE, and it served as
the means by which Muslims came to participate
in the Indian independence movement.

Khomeini, Ruhollah 433

The caliph was the head of the Islamic com-
munity in Sunni Islam. Although some believe
the office ended with the capture of Baghdad by
the Mongols in 1258, throughout Islamic history
there have been numerous attempts to revital-
ize the office, or at least to claim the caliph as a
title. The Khilafat Movement represents a modern
attempt to regenerate the ancient office in a time
when Muslims were being threatened both by the
downfall of the Ottomans, the last great Islamicate
empire, and by Western colonialism. By the end
of World War 1 the British Empire stretched from
Canada to Hong Kong, with most of the world's
Muslims ruled by a European power. This had
been the case for Indian Muslims since 1857,
when the British brought the 300-year-old Mughal
Empire to its final end. Thus, the Khilafat Move-
ment was guided by Muslim elites whose immedi-
ate ancestors had ruled India for centuries.

Led by the brothers Muhammad Ali (d. 1931),
his brother Shaukat Ali (d. 1938), Abul Kalam
Azad (d. 1956), and Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari (d.
1936), among others, the movement success-
fully, albeit briefly, mobilized Indian Muslims,
communities long separated from each other by
sect, language, and region. It aimed to preserve
the caliphate as the center of the Muslim world
and to keep Arab lands and holy sites free from
non-Muslim control. To this end, Khilafatists led
delegations to Europe several times to press their
demands; a number were imprisoned by the Brit-
ish on charges of conspiracy.

The movement received a major boost when
Mohandas K. Gandhi (d. 1948), the leader of the
Indian National Congress, took up the Khilafat
cause in 1919 as part of the noncooperation
movement against British rule. Noncooperation
involved boycotting British goods, giving up
political posts in the Anglo-Indian government,
and, generally speaking, not cooperating with the
mechanisms of British rule. Since Hindus domi-
nated the Congress, adoption of the Khilafat cause
did much to further Muslim-Hindu cooperation
on an all-India scale and led to the belief that

Indian self-government was in the best interest of
India’s Muslims.

Muslim-Hindu unity was not to last. Gandhi’s
suspension of noncooperation and factionalism,
based on personal, religious, and ideological dif-
ferences, ended the delicate Khilafat-Congrcss alli-
ance in 1922. The final blow came when Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938), the leader of the newly
secular nation of Turkey, abolished the caliph-
ate in 1924. It is ironic that Indian Khilafatists
were stressing Pan-Islamism at a time when most
nations with Muslim majorities, Turkey included,
sought to base their legitimacy along cultural and
linguistic and not religious lines. Such “ethnolin-
guistic nationalism" characterized much of the
Muslim world until the 1960s, perhaps dooming
the Khilafat Movement to failure.

Kerry San Cherico

Further reading: Ali Abd Al-Raziq, “The Caliphate and
the Bases of Power." In Islam in Transition: Muslim Per-
spectives, 2d ed., edited by John J. Donohue and John
L. Esposito, 24-31 (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007); L. Carl Brown, Religion and
the State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2000); Hamid Enayat,
Modern Islamic Political Thought (1982. Reprint, Lon-
don and New York: l.B. Tauris, 2005); Gail Minault,
The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Politi-
cal Mobilization in India (New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1982).

Khoja Sec Aga Khan; Ismaili Shiism.

Khomeini, Ruhollah (Ayatollah Khomeini,
Khumayni, Khomeyni) (1902-1989) the most
important Shii leader and jurist of the 20 th century,
founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979
Ruhollah Khomeini was born in the central Ira-
nian town of Khomein. He came from a family
of Twelve-Imam Shii jurists that claimed to be
sayyids , descendants of the prophet Muhammad

' CssP3 434 Khomeini, Ruhollah

(d. 632) through the seventh Imam, Musa al-
Kazim (d. 799). Khomeinis father was murdered
shortly after he was born. He was raised by his
mother and paternal aunt until both died when
he was about 17. His elder brother Murtaza, a
religious scholar, also cared for him and tutored
him in Arabic grammar.

Khomeini began his education in a govern-
ment school, but he also attended a religious
school ( maktab ) and memorized the Quran while
still a child. In 1920, with the encouragement of
his brother, he went to the Shii MADRASA in Arak,
a town near Isfahan, to study with Ayatollah Abd

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the eve of his return
to Iran in 1979 (AP Photos)

al-Karim Hairi Yazdi (d. 1936), one of the leading
scholars in Iran at the time. He and fellow stu-
dents followed Ayatollah Hairi Yazdi to the Shii
shrine city of Qom the following year. There he
studied Islamic jurisprudence (f/qh), in addition
to Quran commentary and hadith, at the feet of
leading Iranian religious scholars. In addition to
his formal studies in Islamic law, he also immersed
himself in the study of Gnostic mysticism (ir/an),
philosophy, ethics, and Persian poetry. He was
known for his ability to quote for hours by heart
from the works of Persian mystical poets such as
Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), Saadi (d. ca. 1291),
and Hafiz (d. ca. 1380). Under the guidance of
Mirza Muhammad Ali Shahabadi (d. 1950) he
became fascinated by the writings of the Anda-
lusian Sufi Muhyi al-Din ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240)
and the Persian visionary Sadr al-Din Shirazi (also
known as Mullah Sadra, d. 1641). The interest he
showed for these subjects distinguished him from
other students and teachers, who regarded such
topics as secondary at best, after study of law and
other traditional madrasa subjects. At the age of
27 Khomeini married Batul, the daughter of an
ayatollah from Tehran. They had five CHILDREN —
three daughters and two sons.

During the 1930s Khomeini completed his
advanced studies and became a mujtahid in the
Usuli tradition of Shii jurisprudence in Qom.
This school of legal thought regarded the jurist as
a living representative ol the 1 2th Imam during
his Occultation ( GHAYBA ), in contrast to the Akh-
bari School, which emphasized imitation ( tacjlid )
of the Shii Imams and the traditions of the past.
Mujtahids could exercise authority ( wilayci ) with
respect to the needs of widows and orphans, the
administration of pious endowments and religious
institutions (mosques, shrines, madrasas), and
the general welfare of the community. In general
they were to uphold the Islamic ethical prin-
ciple of "commanding the right and forbidding
the wrong.” Khomeini refrained from engaging
overtly in politics at the time, deferring to senior
leaders of the Shii religious establishment, some

,Css ^ 436 Khomeini, Ruhollah

history, for no jurist before him had stated that
worldly government must be in the hands of one
of the ULAMA.

The shah’s government was increasingly hated
by many Iranians, and the international com-
munity objected to its human rights abuses.
Meanwhile, revolutionary currents were already
circulating in the country due both to awareness
of anticolonial revolutions in other countries in
Africa and Asia and to the influence of leftist
organizations. The spark that ultimately ignited
Iran's revolutionary fire came in the form of a per-
sonal attack on Khomeini published in an Iranian
newspaper on January 6, 1978. Demonstrations
erupted in Qom, Tabriz, and swept across the
country to the streets of Tehran, the capital. On
September 24, 1978, the shah won the consent
of Saddam Husayn (d. 2006), then the Iraqi vice
president, to have Khomeini deported from Iraq
because of his role in stirring antigovernment
demonstrations in Iran. Khomeini went to Paris,
where he remained until the Shah fled Iran with
his wife on January 15, 1979. The Grand Ayatol-
lah returned triumphantly to Tehran on Febru-
ary 1 and was greeted by millions of cheering
Iranians.

During the next 10 years, Ayatollah Kho-
meini sought to rule Iran in accordance with
the principles set forth in his book on Islamic
government. In effect he created a theocratic gov-
ernment with totalitarian leanings. In addition
to being known as the marjaa al-taqlid, he was
also officially designated as Iran's Leader of the
Revolution (rahbarc inqilab), or Supreme Leader
(rahbarc muazzam). He successfully transferred
power into the hands of the Shii mullahs and
eradicated or exiled his secular and religious
opponents within a few months after his return.
Khomeini also oversaw the drafting and imple-
mentation of a constitution for the fledgling
Islamic Republic before the end of his first year in
office. The constitution allowed for a government
consisting of legislative, executive, and judicial
branches, but it placed these under the control

of religious authority. In November 1979 he gave
his approval to the seizure of the U.S. embassy in
Tehran by a group of students and revolutionar-
ies, provoking a crisis in U.S. -Iranian relations
that has continued until today. He also sought to
spread the revolution to other countries, calling
upon Muslims to rise up against monarchies and
pro-Western governments.

Thinking that Iran's military defenses had
been weakened by the revolution, Saddam Husayn
invaded the country in September 1980. Under
Khomeini's lead, the Iranians counterattacked,
resulting in a costly nine-year war of attrition
in which a million people lost their lives. Even
as the war reached a stalemate in the late 1980s,
Khomeini refused to negotiate peace with Iraq.
The conflict did not end until after Khomeinis
death.

In January 1988 Khomeini took his idea
of “governance of the jurist" to what might be
considered to be its most extreme limit. He pro-
claimed that the power of the Supreme Leader
was absolute, and that his rulings could take
precedence over any other Islamic laws, including
those concerning prayer, fasting, and performing
the hajj. Also, in a move to curb dissent and win
popular support among Muslims at home and
abroad, Khomeini issued a fatwa in February
1988 calling for the death of Salman Rushdie, the
Indian author of The Satanic Verses, a controver-
sial novel that retold the life of Muhammad and
poked fun at religious dictators like Khomeini.

Ayatollah Khomeini died on June 3, 1989. He
was buried in Tehran's Behesht-i Zahra cemetery,
where his gold-domed tomb has become a shrine
for Shii pilgrims. He was survived by one of his
sons, Ahmad, also a mullah, who died in 1995.
All of his daughters married into the families of
merchants and Shii religious scholars. Some of his
grandchildren also became mullahs.

Sec also Akhbari School; ethics and morality;
government, Islamic; Gulf Wars; politics and
Islam; sayyid; Satanic Verses; Twelve-Imam Shiism;
Usuli School.

kuttab 43 7

Further reading: Ruhallah Khomeini, Islam and Revo-
lution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini.
Translated by Hamid Algar (Berkeley, Calif.: Mizan
Press, 1981); Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts
within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: W.W.
Norton. 2007); Ali Rahnema, “Khomeinis Search for
Perfection: Theory and Reality." In Pioneers of Islamic
Revival , edited by Ali Rahnema, 64-97 (London: Zed
Books, 2005).

khums See Shiism.

khutba See sermon.

Koran See Quran.

kufr Sec KAFIR.

kuttab (Arabic: writing school)

A traditional Islamic Quran school providing
elementary levels of education, the kuttab is also
sometimes known as a maktab , though occasion-
ally the two had separate functions. The kuttab
curriculum consisted primarily of memorizing the
Quran and learning the fundamentals of Islamic
belief and practice. But it could also include study
of Arabic grammar, Arabic or Persian classical
poetry, and basic arithmetic. Instruction was cen-
tered on memorization through dictation, writ-
ing, and recitation, with little or no teaching time
devoted to the meaning of the texts.

In the Middle Ages only a minority of boys
from the ages of about four to 10 were given the
opportunity to study at a kuttab. In most regions
and periods, girls were excluded from attending,
but this situation changed in the 19th and 20th
centuries. Upper-class and elite families usually
hired tutors to teach their children at home, but
kuttab s were, by the early modern period, almost

universally available to educate the poor and
middle classes. A kuttab was often established as
a charitable trust (waq/). The kuttab education
could lead to further studies in the Islamic educa-
tion system of jatni halqas , or MOSQUE teaching
circles, and madrasas, or institutions of higher
learning for students who proved their ability.
But most students probably ended their education
after the kuttab and were left with little more than
the ability to recite portions of complex literary
Arabic they were unlikely to comprehend, in the
case of Arabic and non-Arabic speakers alike.
However, they would have been well prepared to
perform their ritual duties as Muslims.

This institution developed very early in the
Islamic period and spread widely in the wake
of the Arah-lslamic conquests. It was important
in all Islamicate lands, serving as the initial
introduction to education as well as playing an
important role in Islamization. The kuttab was
a key feature of Islamicate civilization for many
centuries; however, educational reforms from
the mid- 19th century to the present day have
increasingly led to its decline. The functions of
the kuttab were largely taken over by public,
stale-funded educational systems. In states where
primary education was not universally provided
until late in the 20th century, such as Libya, Saudi
Arabia, and Yemen, the kuttab remained the only
source of education available in rural areas. The
kuttab has been revived in some regions where
the educational system has been completely
secularized, for example, by Indian Muslims after
partition (1947) and in Algeria during the 1930s.
In some states, such as Egypt and Morocco,
the kuttab was modified and integrated into the
national school system or it remains as an impor-
tant alternative to the Islamic education provided
in the public schools.

Sec also literacy.

Shauna Huffaker

Further reading: Ahmad Shalaby, History of Muslim
Education (Beirut: Dar al-Kashshaf, 1954); Gregory

438 Kuwait

Starrctt, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics and
Religious Transformation in Egypt (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1998); Joseph S. Szyliowicz. Educa-
tion and Modernization in the Middle East (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1973).

Kuwait See Gulf states.

Kyrgyzstan See Central Asia and the
Caucasus.

Lat, al- See goddess.

Latin America

According to some scholars, Islam was first estab-
lished in Latin America between the 11th and
12th centuries as a result of maritime contacts
established by African Muslim sailors. The same
scholars support the idea of a Muslim European
influence in the 16th century stemming from the
participation of moriscos (Andalusian Muslims
who remained in Spain under Christian rulers
after 1492) in the discovery and conquest of the
continent. However, these first origins of Islam in
Latin America are still debated. The first Muslim
population to arrive of which we have specific
data were the African Muslim slaves brought to
the continent by the Dutch, French, and British
colonial powers. Later on, in the 19th century,
following the abolition of SLAVERY, the recruitment
of indentured labor from India and Indonesia
brought to Latin America a number of Indian
and Indonesian Muslims, mainly to the present-
day countries of Guyana, Suriname and Panama.
Following this, in the last decades of the 19th
century, Muslim and Christian Arabs from Greater
Syria (the Mediterranean Levant) emigrated to
and settled in Latin America as a consequence of

both the devastating effects of the ongoing eco-
nomic crisis of the Ottoman Empire and specific
cases of religious persecution of Christian com-
munities.

The Muslim community in Latin America
today is small in size, diverse in character, and
grouped in several countries. Although no exact
statistics of the total Muslim population exist, it is
estimated that the Muslim community constitutes
less than 1 percent of the total population of Latin
America. Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad have
the largest number of Muslims followed by Brazil
and Argentina.

Although not the largest in number, Brazil has
one of the strongest Muslim communities. Despite
a number of African Muslim slaves who were
brought to the country during the 17th and 18th
centuries, the current Muslim community dates to
the Arab emigration in the last decades of the 19th
century. It is concentrated mainly in the state of
Sao Paulo, where the first mosque was established
in 1950. In 1968 the Islamic Dawa Center of Latin
America for the spread of Islam was founded.

Suriname has the largest Asian Muslim popu-
lation, 26 percent of its total population. The Suri-
namese Muslim community originates from the
indentured Indian and Indonesian labor brought
by the Dutch and the British at the turn of the

439

^ 440 law

20th century. The Indonesian identity of some
members of the community is visible in specific
practices that are linked to those in Indonesia,
such as the orientation of their mosques facing
west instead of east, following the practice of
mosques in Indonesia, an issue that has created
some controversy among Muslims in Suriname.

See also Canada; colonialism; daawa; United
States.

Maria del Mar Logrono

Further reading: Hisham Aidi, “Let Us Be Moors: Islam,
Race and ‘Connected Histories. ” Middle East Report
229 (Winter 2003): 42-53; S. A. H. Ahsani, “Muslims
in Latin America: A Survey, Part I.” Journal of the Insti-
tute for Muslim Minority Affairs 5 (1984): 454-463;
Omar Hasan Kasule, “Muslims in Latin America: A
Survey, Part II.” Journal of the Institute for Muslim
Minority Affairs 5 (1984): 464-467; Ali Kettani, Muslim
Minorities in the World Today (New York: Institute of
Muslim Minority Affairs, 1986); Ignacio Klitch and Jef-
frey Lesser, “Introduction: Turko Immigrants in Latin
America." The Americas 53 (July 1996): 1-14; Larry
Luxncr, “Muslims in the Caribbean." Saudi Aramco
World (November-Deccmbcr 1987): 2-11.

law See fiqh; sharia.

law, international

In the 20th century the ways in which separate
communities interact changed radically. Central to
this change has been the growth and development
of the modern nation-state, a process that began
in 17th-century Europe with the Treaty of West-
phalia (1648) and that reached its apex in the late
20th century. During the intervening centuries,
the modern state replaced other kinds of political
organization. Importantly, the development of the
modern state coincided with the decline of explic-
itly religious authority in Europe and the rise of
secular authority and the rule of law, giving rise
to what is now called the modern state: an entity

with fixed geographical borders and a government
acting as the ultimate authority within that terri-
tory. As the modern state became the template for
the entire world in the 20th century, a new body
or regime of law was created to systematize the
chaotic interactions among those states.

The modern system of international law rests
on the authority of a series of international orga-
nizations, each having their origins in the creation
of the United Nations (UN) in the wake of World
War II (1945). Prior to the emergence of modern
international law, interaction among political enti-
ties often took place on an ad hoc basis. Today, the
UN, the World Trade Organization, the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund, and the World Bank over-
see a system of law regulating economic, military,
and diplomatic relations among stales. In theory,
international law is based on the equality of all
states before the law. Each state must be inde-
pendent — capable of making decisions free from
external coercion — in order for international law
to be effective and truly universal. The develop-
ment of international law, however, raises serious
questions about whether or not this is possible.

In this regard, there arc three main points to
keep in mind. First, the modern state developed
in a particular setting — 17th-century Europe —
and its spread to other settings upset religious and
political relationships and modes of organization
in those areas. Second, the spread of the modern
state often occurred through colonial relation-
ships between European and non-European sub-
jects. The construction of a free, stable, and truly
independent state in this context has proved a
difficult task, particularly given the tremendous
dislocation of populations that accompanied the
process. Finally, the idea of international law
developed out of Anglo-American and European
experiences in the wake of World Wars I and
II, and addressed those parties' concerns. Many
states that existed at the time and the many that
have formed since the close of World War II were
excluded from the negotiations that created the
system of modern international law.

Lebanon 441

The vast majority of the conflicts confront-
ing the world today, including ethnic conflict,
religious violence, and the widening gap between
developed and developing nations, reflect these
problems. Many Islamist movements, for exam-
ple, contest the authority of human-made law
and of human sovereignty, both central to the
concept of the modern state and to international
law. Islamist movements, however, are certainly
not alone in raising questions about the validity
of international law. In many quarters of the world
international law is a contested entity, far from the
universally accepted regulatory system envisioned
by 19th- and 20th-century American and Euro-
pean scholars and policymakers.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Camp David
accords; citizenship; colonialism; dar al-Islam
and dar al-Harb; Gulf Wars; Islamism; human
rights; jihad movements; terrorism.

Caleb H. Elfenbein

Further reading: Francis Anthony Boyle, Foundations
of World Order (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,
1999); Richard A. Falk. Unlocking the Middle East: The
Writings of Richard Falk, An Anthology (New York: Olive
Branch Press, 2003); Wilhelm G. Grcwe, The Epochs of
International Law (New York: Walter dc Gruytcr, 2000);
Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Law of Nations: Shaybanis
Siyar (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966);
Majid Khadduri, The Law of War and Peace in Islam (Bal-
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1953).

Laylat al-Qadr See Night of Destiny.

League of Arab States Sec Arab League.

Lebanon (Official name: Lebanese
Republic)

Lebanon is a small country of about 3.9 million
people (2008 estimate) occupying a land of leg-

endary beauty, which totals a little over 4,000
square miles at the eastern edge of the Mediter-
ranean Sea. It is smaller than the state of Con-
necticut in the United States. Bordering Israel
on the south and Syria on the north and east,
Lebanon comprises a narrow coastal plain that
rises into the Lebanon Mountains, which parallel
the sea and peak at the perennially snowcapped
10,131-foot Qurnat al-Sawda. Historically called
“The Lebanon,’* these mountains drop on the east
into the Beqaa Valley, which extends to the Anti-
Lebanon Mountains at the eastern border. In gen-
eral the coastline features a combination of rough
shores, fine beaches, and ancient ports; the coastal
plain is fertile and relatively humid; the Lebanon
Mountains are rugged and lush; and the Beqaa is
agricultural and relatively dry.

The population is about 60 percent Muslim
and 40 percent Christian, with Shiis representing
the largest Muslim group (1.2 million, 2005 esti-
mate) and Maronites forming the largest Christian
denomination (estimated between 800,000 and
900,000). Lebanon also has a significant Druze
population. Arabic is the official language, though
French, English, and Armenian arc also spoken.
The government has a democratically elected par-
liament, a president as chief of state, and a prime
minister as head of state. The economy is about 67
percent service-based, 21 percent industry, and 12
percent agriculture, with substantial remittances
also coming from large numbers of Lebanese liv-
ing abroad.

Colonial empires throughout history have
been attracted to the desirable location and natu-
ral habitat of Lebanon, and a striking legacy of
Roman and native Phoenician ruins remains to
the present. In the seventh century the Byzantine
Empire lost control of what is now Lebanon to
the rapidly expanding Islamicate empire, thereby
setting the stage for the complex religious demo-
graphic that continues to exist today. In a succes-
sion of shifting reigns, the Crusaders seized the
area in the 12th century, the Mamluks took control
in the 13th century, and the Ottomans ascended to

'Css'D

442 legal schools

power in the 16th century. Facing oppression by
the various conquering forces, marginalized reli-
gious groups (for example, Maronites, Shiis, and
Druze) found refuge in the difficult terrain and
remote heights of The Lebanon, thereby ensuring
their ongoing participation in the diverse sectar-
ian makeup of the population.

The Lebanon had been considered part of
Greater Syria since ancient times, and, in the
wake of World War 1, in 1920, France received
the mandate over much of Greater Syria. Later
the same year the French established Greater
Lebanon with its modern borders and with the
capital at Beirut. Officially the Lebanese Republic,
the country gained independence from France in
1943 with a government based on a confessional
system of power sharing between its many reli-
gious sects. Per the last official census, from 1932,
when Christians were the majority, the president
is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister
a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a
Shii Muslim. While the demography has shifted
and given rise to a Muslim majority, Lebanon's
relatively high percentage of Christians continues
to be unique among Arab countries.

Muslim sects include Sunnis, Twelve-Imam
Shiis, Ismaili Shiis, Alawis, and Druze. Christian
sects include Maronite, Greek Catholic, Roman
Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Jacobite (Syrian Ortho-
dox), Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian), Armenian
Catholic, Assyrian (Nestorian), Chaldean, and
Protestant. Large numbers of Palestinian refugees
fled to Lebanon after the Arab-lsracli wars of
1948 and 1967, and southern Lebanon became an
important base for the Palestine Liberation Orga-
nization (PLO). Jews played an integral role in Leb-
anese society until they emigrated in large numbers
under increasing pressures fomented especially by
the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in 1982, which ended PLO control in the
south and gave rise to Hizbullah, a Lebanese Shii
guerrilla and social welfare organization.

Underlying dissatisfactions with the sectar-
ian power balance coupled with a long history

of foreign meddling that was increasingly fueled
by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict led to the Civil
War of 1973-90. The brutality and chaos of this
notorious war shattered any image of the tolerant
pluralistic society for which Lebanon had been so
well known. While resolution of the underlying
causes of the war has remained elusive, substan-
tial reconstruction was undertaken in Beirut, and
Lebanon regained its attraction as a tourist des-
tination in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This
situation, however, began to deteriorate with the
assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime
minister (1992-98, 2000-04), in February 2005
by unknown assailants. A hostage-taking incident
at the Lcbancse-lsraeli border in summer 2006
resulted in a short-lived Israeli-Lebanese war that
involved Hizbullah missile attacks on Israel and
Israeli airstrikes and troop movements in Leba-
non. The Lebanese infrastructure was seriously
damaged, especially in the south. United Nations
troops were introduced into the country to facili-
tate peace-keeping efforts in the war’s aftermath.

Sec also Alawi; Arab-Israeli conflicts; Arme-
nians; Christianity and Islam; colonialism;
Crusades; Mamluk; Ottoman dynasty; Shiism;
Sunnism.

Kenneth S. Habib

Further reading: Asad AbuKhalil, Historical Diction-
ary of Lebanon (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1998);
Helena Cobban. The Shia Community and the Future
of Lebanon (Washington. D.C.: American Institute for
Islamic Affairs, 1985); Lara Dccb, An Enchanted Modern:
Gender and Public Piety in Shii Lebanon (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 2006); Philip Khuri Hitti,
Lebanon in History: From the Earliest Times to the Pres-
ent , 3d ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967); Michael
Johnson, Class and Client in Beirut: The Sunni Muslim
Community and the Lebanese State , 1840-1985 (Atlantic
Highlands, N.J.: Ithaca Press, 1986).

legal schools See fiqh; sharia.

Libya 443

'tf=a i D

Libya (Official name: Great Socialist
People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [Peoples’
Republic])

Libya is a North African country with an area of
nearly 1.8 million square miles, comparable in
size to the state of Alaska. It is bounded by the
Mediterranean Sea to the north; Egypt to the east;
Niger, Chad, and Sudan to the south; and Tunisia
and Algeria to the west. Most of the population
(about 6 million, 2008 estimate) lives in a narrow
belt near the coastline. About 97 percent are Ber-
bers and Arabs, the rest being Europeans, Turks,
and South Asians. Libyans, with the exception of
a small number of Ibadi Muslims, are Sunnis (97
percent) who follow the Maliki Legal School
like other North African Muslims. The northeast-
ern part of the country is known as Cyrenaica,
after the ancient Greek city of Cyrene. In Late
Antiquity this region had a Jewish and Christian
population. In 1948 there were about 38,000 Jews
left in the country, almost all of whom have since
migrated to Israel. The modern capital is Tripoli,
a city on the Mediterranean littoral.

Once part of the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine
empires, the coastal region of Libya was incor-
porated into the Islamicate empire by Muslim
armies that came from Egypt and Arabia during
the reign of the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan
( r. 644-656). It obtained provincial status in vari-
ous empires during the ensuing centuries, while
the expanses of the Sahara and its oases were in
the hands of Arab and Berber tribes and tribal
confederacies. Libyan ports served as havens for
pirates who raided Mediterranean shipping when
governmental control was weak. Tripoli became
part of the Ottoman Empire in 1551 and remained
under intermittent Ottoman control until the Ital-
ian invasion of 191 1.

The Italians emulated France and other Euro-
pean powers by creating a colonial base in North
Africa. They wanted Libya to be their Fourth
Shore, part of a modern Roman Empire. Their
ability to control land beyond the coast, how-
ever, met with strong resistance from tribal con-

federations led by the Sanusi Sufi Order. This
order had been founded in Mecca in 1837 by an
Algerian shaykh, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Sanusi
(1787-1859), who claimed descent from the
prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima.
Because the order followed a simple form of
Sufism that lacked ecstatic rituals and promoted a
strong work ethic, it won a wide following among
Bedouins and Berbers. Centered in Cyrenaica,
the order established a network of lodges for
religious, educational, and social gatherings that
stretched across the oases of the Sahara and into
some of the northern cities. Although the Sanusi
Sufis preferred to live a life of piety and study, they
called for a jihad against foreign invaders, fighting
the French in Chad, then the Italians in Libya.
The French were able to defeat them, and later the
Italians, but only after a guerrilla war that lasted
for nearly 22 years. While the Sanusi leadership
resided in exile in Egypt, the anticolonial war was
fought by Bedouin led by tribal leaders such as
Umar al-Mukhtar (1862-1931), a village Quran
teacher. The Libyan resistance was quelled only
when Italian forces, with the approval of Italian
dictator Benito Mussolini, isolated the guerril-
las in the mountains and blocked their access to
civilian supporters. The conflict was a costly one
for the Libyans — 100,000 were placed in concen-
tration camps and thousands died or were killed.
In 1934 the Italians officially named their prize
colony “Libya” after an ancient Greek name for
the region of North Africa (based on the ancient
Egyptian word LBW or RBW). During the 1930s
the number of Italian colonials exceeded 100,000.
Their control of Libya ended, however, in World
War II as a result of Allied military victories in
North Africa.

Britain, France, the United States, and the
Soviet Union each had different ideas about what
to do with Libya after World War II. In 1951,
however, the United Nations General Assembly
approved a resolution to grant Libya its indepen-
dence as a kingdom under the rule of the Grand
Sanusi, Sayyid Muhammad Idris (d. 1983). The

444 literacy

kingdom was plagued by a poor educational
system and a weak economy that depended on
foreign aid from the United States. High-grade
OIL was discovered in 1959, which eventually led
to significant economic and social gains for the
country.

In 1969 a group of Libyan officers lead by
Captain (later Colonel) Muammar al-Qadhdhafi
(b. 1943) deposed the monarchy in a bloodless
coup while King Idris was out of the country. In
its place they established the Libyan Arab Repub-
lic, which drew its inspiration from the ideals of
secular Arab nationalism as espoused by President
Jamal Abd al-NASiR of Egypt (r. 1954-70). The
charismatic al-Qadhdhafi, a Bedouin, has revolu-
tionized Libyan politics and society and has been
the supreme leader in the country since the coup.
He was once portrayed as an Islamic "fundamen-
talist M in the Western media because of his efforts
to reintroduce Islamic law in the early 1970s.
However in the mid-1970s he presented a new
political ideology, called the Third Universal The-
ory, in his Green Book. His theory was conceived
as an alternative to the "theories” of capitalism
and Marxism, and it called for direct popular self-
rule through networks of congresses and commit-
tees and the creation of a classless society. This
theory provided the basis for renaming Libya the
"Peoples' Republic" or "Republic of the Masses”
( Jamahiriyya ) in 1977. In reality the government
has been an authoritarian one in which political
parties are banned and has a record of serious
human rights violations. Islam was not mentioned
explicitly in his Green Book, although "religion”
was discussed as a binding social and moral force.
In his speeches, however, al-Qadhdhafi has por-
trayed Islam as an anticolonial religion based on
the Quran and the use of ijtihad (reasoned legal
judgment). He has condemned the traditional
Islamic legal schools and Sufi orders as reaction-
ary, and has even banned the Sanusis.

Under al-Qadhdhafi's leadership, economic
and social conditions have improved significantly
for most Libyans. Prom being one of the most

destitute countries in the world it now has a pov-
erty rate below 8 percent and one of the highest
LITERACY rates in the Middle East (82.6 percent,
2003 estimate). Libya has improved its relations
with its Arab and African neighbors and has been
a strong supporter of anticolonial and advocacy
movements of developing countries, including the
Palestine Liberation Organization and the Irish
Republican Army. During the 1980s and 1990s it
was viewed as a pariah state and a supporter of
terrorism. U.S. president Ronald Reagan ordered
a bombing of Libyan bases and al-Qaddhafi's resi-
dence in April 1986 after several military incidents
in the Gulf of Sidra and suspected Libyan involve-
ment in the bombing of a nightclub in West Berlin
that killed two U.S. servicemen. The U.S. attacks
may have precipitated the retaliatory bombing by
Libya of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland, in which 270 people perished, includ-
ing 37 American college students. In recent years,
radical Islamist or jihad movements have not been
able to establish a base in Libya and relations with
the United States have improved as a result of the
governments willingness to destroy its weapons
of mass destruction and related facilities.

See also colonialism; Ibadiyya; renewal and
reform movements; Sufism.

Further reading: Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, The Making
of Modern Libya: State Formation, Colon ialization, and
Resistance , 1830-1932 (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1994); Mahmoud Ayoub. Islam and the
Third Universal Theory: The Religious Thought of Muam-
mar al-Qaddhafi (London: KPI Limited, 1987); Dirk
Vandewalle, A History of Modern Libya (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. 2006).

literacy

Traditions of literacy have been fundamental to
the growth and maintenance of lslamicatc societ-
ies throughout the world. According to Sura 96 of
the Quran, often considered the first revelation
delivered to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel,

literature 445

Muhammad was commanded to read ( iqra ). The
scriptural nature of Islam made literacy a primary
vehicle for the dissemination of the faith, as well
as a virtue for pious Muslims wanting to read the
Quran and other religious texts.

As the Islamic religion spread beyond the Ara-
bian Peninsula, Arabic, the language of the Quran,
became a lingua franca for trade and government
as well as religious EDUCATION and the literary arts.
Prominent notables, as well as merchants and
professionals, were careful to give their children
the gift of literacy, at least in the Quran. More-
over, prominent institutions of learning, such as
the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and al-AzHAR
University in Cairo, flourished at the height of the
Islamicate empires.

Despite the rich legacy of literacy in Mus-
lim lands, however, widespread literacy has been
a more recent phenomenon, as in many other
regions of the globe, as a result of the introduction
of the printing press and, more recently, new elec-
tronic technologies. Modern governments in the
Middle East have had varying success in spreading
literacy in the postcolonial era. Reformers such as
the Iraqi Sati al-Husri (1869-1967) proclaimed the
importance of mass education for the success of
the modern nation-state, while President Jamal Abd
al-Nasir (d. 1970) expanded university education
far beyond its traditional class boundaries in Egypt.
Policies such as these did much to bring mass liter-
acy closer to a reality for the modern Middle East.

However, many Muslim countries continue
to struggle with literacy at the dawn of the 21st
century. For example, among the largest Muslim
populations in 2005, Indonesians had a literacy

rate of 87.9 percent, but Pakistan's was 48.7 per-
cent and Bangladesh's was 41.1 percent. The lit-
eracy rate among India's Muslim population was
59.1 percent. As of 2005 Egypt had a literacy rate
of 55.6 percent, Sudan a rate of 59 percent, Iran a
rate of 80 percent, and Saudi Arabia a rate of 79.4
percent. Jordan and Lebanon have been the most
successful Arab nations in terms of literacy, reach-
ing a rate of over 86 percent in 2005, while Israel
had a rate of 96.9 percent. In Turkey it was 88.3
percent. Although the majority of adults living in
Muslim countries are literate, there is still much
work to be done in a number of areas to achieve
literacy rates that match those of top-tier coun-
tries of the world.

See also adab ; Arabic language and literature;

BOOKS AND BOOKMAKING; KUTTAB ; MADRASA; ULAMA.

Nancy L. Stockdale

Further reading: Jack Goody, The Interface between the
Written and the Oral (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987); Irfan Habib. Iqtidar Alam Khan, and K.
P. Singh. "Problems of the Muslim Minority in India.”
Social Scientist 4 (June 1976): 67-72; Paul Lund, “Ara-
bic and the Art of Printing." Saudi Aramco World 32
(March-April 1981): 20-35; Golnar Mehran, “Social
Implications of Literacy in Iran." Comparative Educa-
tion Review 36 (May 1992): 194-211; Brian V. Street,
ed.. Literacy and Development: Ethnographic Perspectives
(London: Routledge, 2001).

literature See African Language and Literature;
Arabic Language and Literature; Persian Language
and Literature; Turkish Language and Literature.

madhhab Sec sharia.

Madina See Medina.

madrasa

A place of education for Muslim religious lead-
ers and scholars. Islamic education began in the
prophet Muhammad's time, but centers of learn-
ing did not begin until after the first and second
centuries of Islam. The most prominent of the
earliest madrasas is Egypt's al-AzHAR, which was
opened under the Fatimids in 970 c.E. The open-
ing in Baghdad of the Nizamiyya College in 1066
marked the beginning of the madrasa system.
Many Nizamiyyas were opened afterward; the
point of these madrasas and systems of madrasas
in other regions was to create uniform opinion
regarding Islamic law and theology.

Compared to Jewish Yeshiva schools and Chris-
tian scriptural schools, madrasas concentrated on
rote memorization of the Quran, knowledge of
correct ritual practice, and the deduction of legal
points from the scriptures ( fiqh ), and, in fact, they
eventually produced bodies of law. Philosophy,
astronomy, and mathematics were also taught

in medieval Iranian madrasas, but opposition
grew in Arab lands during this time against the
study of philosophy, and, after the 14th century,
Arab madrasas instead emphasized grammar and
rhetoric as well as religious law. Fischer argues
that after the 11th century, madrasas in the Arab
world displayed little innovation, and intellectual
freedom, instead focusing on repetition and com-
mentary. Typically, a lecturer would dictate long
quotations to his students, and then he would
comment on meaning, content, and style.

At times friction between religion and govern-
ment arose as scholarly opinions emanating from
madrasas began to bear legal weight, because this
legal aspect competed with other forms of AUTHOR-
ITY such as the court or the state. In 16th-century
Iran, the madrasa system maintained a much
greater degree of independence from the state
than in the Ottoman Empire, although Iranian
rulers built madrasas and granted them endow-
ments. Yet they were also privately supported, and
were not absorbed into the state. The Ottoman
DYNASTY, on the other hand, found it beneficial to
control the madrasa system.

Modernizing forces in Europe in the 18th and
19th centuries brought about a new struggle, in
which Europeans tried to free education from

446

Mahdi 447

the church, and to reform education to be more
relevant in the Industrial Age. A similar debate
arose in the Middle East. In Iran during the 19th
century, this resulted in the opening of secular
profession schools, and, by the 20th century, Ira-
nian madrasa students became an isolated yet still
influential minority The Ottomans reformed their
institutions of higher learning before reforming
the madrasa system for elementary students. In
1924 Ataturk’s government in Turkey eliminated
the madrasa system in favor of secular education;
however, Islamic education was reinstated in the
late 1940s. In the second half of the 19th century
in Egypt, Muslim Egyptians began to attend secu-
lar schools, and a movement arose in the late 19th
to the early 20th century to modernize al-Azhar.

Madrasa education, although replaced to a
great degree by the rise of systems of modern
education, still exists all over the Muslim world.
Fazlur Rahman notes that in contemporary Paki-
stan, madrasas teaching traditional interpretations
of Islam flourish mainly in the countryside. He also
argues that the more any given region in the Mus-
lim world was affected by Western colonialism, the
stronger the hold is in that region of traditional
madrasa-style learning by the religious elite.

See also Aligarh; Deoband; kuttab ; ulama;
Zaytuna Mosque.

Sophia Pandya

Further reading: Michael M. J. Fischer. Iran: From
Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1980); Fazlur Rahman, Islam
and Modernity: Translation of an Intellectual Tradition
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Charles
Michael Stanton, Higher Learning in Islam: The Classical
Period , a.d. 700-1300 (Savage, Md.: Rowman and Little-
field Publishers, 1990).

Mahdi

Meaning “one who is rightly guided" in Arabic,
the Mahdi is a messianic figure who, according to

some Muslims, will return at the end of time to
restore Islam to its original perfection.

Although the word Mahdi does not occur in
the Quran, it was used from the earliest days of
Islam as an honorific title: the prophet Muham-
mad was called the Mahdi, as was his son-in-law
Ali, and his grandson al-Husayn. However, it was
not until the revolt led in the name of Alis third
son, Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, against the
Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 c.e.) that the term
Mahdi began to refer to an expected ruler who
would usher in Judgment Day.

Although eventually crushed, Ibn al-tlanafiyyas
movement was instrumental in shaping the image
of the expected Mahdi. Indeed, when his followers
began insisting that their leader was not dead but
rather hiding in a transcendent realm from which he
would one day return to fill the world with justice,
they initiated a doctrine that eventually became
one of the central tenets of Shiism: the occultation
(chayba) and return (rajaa) of the Mahdi.

The doctrine of occultation and return was
developed even further after the sudden death of
Ismail ibn Jaafar (d. 762), who had originally been
designated the seventh Imam. When Ismail was
replaced by his younger brother, Musa al-Kazim, a
small group of Shiis calling themselves the Ismai-
lis refused to accept the new Imam and instead
claimed that Ismail was alive and in occultation as
the Hidden Imam, another term for the Mahdi. For
the majority of Shiis, however, the line of Imams
continued through Musa until the 12th Imam,
Muhammad ibn al-Hasan (also known as Muham-
mad al-Mahdi), who himself went into final occul-
tation in 941 C.E. as the Mahdi. Thus, by the
middle of the 10th century, a complex apocalyptic
theology concerning the Mahdi's second coming
had become firmly entrenched in Shii THEOLOGY.

As the doctrine of the Mahdi developed in
Shiism, the dominant Sunni law schools began
to distance themselves from the idea, partly in an
attempt to discourage what was becoming both
a politically and a socially disruptive theology.
And yet, to this day there exists a vigorous debate

'CaS^D

448 Mahdiyya movement

The comb of Muhammad Ahmad, the Sudanese
Mahdi, in Omdurman, Sudan (Juan E. Campo)

among Sunni religious scholars over both the mes-
sianic function and the political role ol the Mahdi.
In fact, in the 18th and 19th centuries, a number of
rebellions against the colonialist powers were led
by Sunni Muslims who claimed to be the expected
Mahdi, the most famous of whom was the Suda-
nese Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad (d. 1885), whose
forces managed to keep Britain and Egypt at bay
until 1898.

Nonetheless, it is among the Shia that the
doctrine of the Mahdi has had its greatest develop-
ment. Over the centuries, a number of Shii theo-
logians have prophesied the Mahdi's imminent
return, which, according to the traditions, will
be heralded by civil wars, false prophets, earth-
quakes, and the abolition of Islamic law. In the
20th century, these messianic expectations were
revived by the tumultuous events of the Iranian
Revolution of 1978-1979, which was led by the
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whom some Irani-
ans believed to be the expected Mahdi.

Sec also Ahmediyya; Bahai Faith; eschatology;
Ismaili Shiism.

Reza Aslan

Further reading: Jassim M. Hussain. Occultation of (he
Twelfth Imam (London: The Muhammadi Trust, 1982);
Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985); Abdulaziz
A. Sachedina, Islamic Messianism (New York: State Uni-
versity of New York Press, 1981).

Mahdiyya movement

This revolutionary movement was launched in the
Sudan in 1881 by the religious reformer, Muham-
mad Ahmad, who claimed to be the Mahdi (the
rightly guided messianic leader, whose just rule
will usher in the end of the age). Like many other
19th-century jihad movements, the Mahdiyya had
religious elements (fed by widespread eschato-
logical expectations in the region) and political
elements (based upon anticolonial sentiments
directed toward Turco-Egyptian, and later Brit-
ish, dominance of the Sudan). Ahmads followers
succeeded in establishing an independent state,
which implemented a government based upon
classical Islamic institutions until its defeat by the
British at Omdurman in 1898.

Upon revealing himself to be the long-awaited
Mahdi in early 1881, Ahmad called upon Suda-
nese Muslims to make the hijra (emigration) from
serving the infidels and to join him in establishing
a just Islamic government. Those who answered
this appeal were called Ansar, in imitation of the
Medinans who first aided the prophet Muham-
mad. The Mahdi's jihad was tremendously suc-
cessful, partially due to unrest within EGYPT that
limited the Egyptian government’s response and
partially due to Ahmad's religious aura, which
made Egyptian Muslim soldiers hesitant to fight
him. However, shortly after establishing his state,
the Mahdi died in 1885, leaving his disciple,
Abdallahi, to succeed him as CALIPH. After put-
ting down internal opposition, Abdallahi secured
his authority over a broad expanse of territory
roughly corresponding to the modern nation of
the Sudan. However, the consolidation of British
colonial power in Egypt led to an expedition by

Majnun and Layla 449

Lord Kitchener that conquered the Mahdist state
in 1898. Even in defeat, the Mahdists retained
widespread popularity. Their descendants formed
the Ansar party that pushed for Sudanese inde-
pendence in the 1950s.

Further reading: Richard A. Bermann, The Mahdi of
Allah (New York: MacMillan, 1932); P. M. Holt, The
Mahdist State in the Sudan (London: Oxford University
Press, 1958); Rudolf C. Slatin Pasha, Fire and Sword in
the Sudan: A Personal Narrative of Fighting and Serv-
ing the Dervishes , 1879-1895. Translated by Major F
R. Wingate (London: Edward Arnold. 1896); Haim
Shaked, The Life of the Sudanese Mahdi (New Bruns-
wick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1978).

Makka See Mecca.

Majnun and Layla

Qays ibn al-Mulawwah, the "most famous of
the famous" lovers, is a renowned ancient Arab
poet. Qays is also known by his nom de plume,
Majnun, which means "the mad one” or "the one
possessed.” He was born in the Hijaz region of the
Arabian Peninsula (in modern-day Saudi Arabia)
during the latter half of the seventh century. Maj-
nun is both a famous poet and a character in the
Arabic romance associated with his name, namely,
the Udhri love story of Majnun Layla. His life and
love poetry are most fully recorded in a 10th-cen-
tury multivolume work titled Kitab al-Aghani y or
Book of Songs , produced by a Baghdadi courtier
named Abu 1-Faraj al-Isfahani.

There arc several accounts of how Majnun and
his beautiful beloved, named Layla bint al-Harish,
fell in love, but the most oft-quoted one is that
they fell in love when they were children while
tending to the flocks of their kin. What happens
next between these two star-struck young people
is legendary in the Islamic world. After a brief
period of courtship between them, during which
Majnun publicly serenades her and publicly recites

what was then considered to be risque poetry
about his relation with the flirtatious Layla, her
family veils her and bars him from seeing her.
Afraid that he might lose her, Majnun then asks
for her hand in marriage, but he is flatly refused
by her father. After being summarily rejected, Maj-
nun, despite numerous attempts by his kin to help
him, becomes somewhat deranged and emotion-
ally unstable. The biographical accounts describe
how he starts to madly and aimlessly wander about
and live with the beasts in the desert; at times, he
wanders as far as the boundaries to Syria or Yemen.
Even after Layla is married to a wealthy man from
another tribe, Majnun continues nostalgically to
recall his beloved through his poetry. In the end,
Majnun dies in a desert wilderness place remote
from his tribal shelter and home. Appropriately, he
is found dead by a fan of his verses who travels to
Maj nun’s clan to hear and collect his poems. The
burial lament for Majnun is attended by people
from Laylas clan, including her father who repents
his earlier harshness toward the youth.

Rather like a traveling folktale, the romance
of Majnun Layla over time has crossed many
cultural and linguistic boundaries, and it has
spread throughout the Islamic world. It has been
composed and recomposed in Persian, Arabic,
Turkish, and Urdu literatures in the form of
poetry, romance, and drama, and it has even been
set to film. It has recently arrived in the West as
well; in Germany it was made into a symphony
and “Layla" is also a musical composition of Eric
Clapton. Through its diffusion, the romance has
undergone numerous changes, including acquir-
ing new themes and motifs, as well as experi-
encing genre transformations. In the medieval
Persian literary tradition, two famous authors
who composed romance narratives celebrating
these two lovers are Nizami (d. ca. 1217) andjami
(d. 1492). Indeed, part of the significance of the
Majnun Layla romance (alternatively often known
in non-Arabic literatures as Layla Majnun) is that
it played an important role in the development of
chronologically later genres, such as mystical Sufi

^ 450 maktab

literature, medieval Persian and Urdu love poetry
and narratives, and, according to some scholars,
medieval European romance.

See also folklore; Persian language and

LITERATURE.

Ruqayya Yasmine Khan

Further reading: Michael Dols, Majnun: The Madman in
Medieval Islamic Society (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992); Nizami, The Story of Layla and Majnun.
Translated and edited by Rudolf Gelpke et al. (New
York: Omega Publications, 1997).

maktab Sec kvttab.

Malamati Sufis

All Sufis seek to control the desires of the self
(nafs)j which prevent the individual from reach-
ing God, but while many try to do so by devoting
themselves to outward forms of worship, Mala-
matis reject outward display of their devotion,
considering this too to be feeding the seifs desire
for acceptance by society. Malamati Sufism is not a
clearly defined system of beliefs, but a set of prac-
tices and a psychology relating to the principle
of refraining from actions that would gain the
approval of society, including public performance
of the prescribed forms of worship. Malamatis
do not seek the approval of society, and they do
not fear its blame. The Malamati Sufis base their
beliefs on the Quranic verse: “They struggle in the
path of God and fear not the blame of any blamer"
(Q 5:54), and thus their name is derived from the
Arabic word malama, meaning “blame.”

As a consequence of their avoidance of public
worship, Malamatis were often accused of not
acting in accordance with religious law and con-
demned by orthodox authorities. Nevertheless,
most Malamatis tried to live within the world,
wearing clothing that did not attract attention and
often working in the marketplace as artisans.

Though similar religious attitudes existed
before the advent of Islam, Malamati Sufism in its
Islamic form developed in the region of Khurasan
in the ninth century, in part as a response to the
extroverted ascetism of the Karramis. The first
major figure of the Malamati movement was Ham-
dun al-Qassar (d. 884) of Nishapur, who taught
the renunciation of the need to please people,
which would lead to actions done in hypocrisy
(riya). Malamatis did not participate in Sufi rituals
such as dhikr and samaa (musical audition), since
in doing so their inner states might be revealed.

Because of the invisibility of Malamatis, it is
difficult to discern any structured organization
under that name and to determine the extent
to which their influence spread. It seems likely,
though, that the principles of Malamatism led
some to purposely seek the blame of others by
openly violating religious and social conventions,
and these came to be known as Qalandars. The
Naqshbandi order may also have been influenced
by Malamatis, in its refusal of distinctive clothing
and its preference for a silent dhikr. In Ottoman
lands, Malamati principles were incorporated into
the Malami and Hamzawi orders.

See also asceticism; sufism.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimen-
sions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1975); Sara Sviri, “Hakim Tirmidhi and the Mala-
mati Movement in Early Sufism. In Classical Persian
Sufism: From Its Origins to Rumi t edited by L. Lewisohn
(New York: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1993),
583-613; J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in
Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).

Malaysia

The modern nation of Malaysia consists of the
southern half of the Malay Peninsula and the
states of Sarawak and Sabah on the northern coast
of the island of Borneo. Each of the three compo-

452 Malaysia

overwhelmingly Chinese. Most of the Indians
are Hindus from southern India. Christianity has
made an impact primarily among the non-Malay
half of the population, and now claims about 9
percent of the population.

From the first century C.E., Malaysia experi-
enced migrations from both China and India and
it became the home of kingdoms with Hindu and
Buddhist roots. In the 15th century, following the
opening of the port of Malacca on the peninsula's
west coast, the first conversions to Islam were
reported. Through the next century, Islam gradu-
ally replaced Buddhism as the dominant faith on
the peninsula, and a set of states was established,
each headed by a sultan. Islam's initial converts
included some among the aristocratic class on the
peninsula. It spread among this class over several
centuries, often through marriage alliances.

Beginning in the 1 6th century, a variety of
European colonial powers moved into the region.
In 1511 the Portuguese seized Malacca. In the
next century, the Dutch, in alliance with the sul-
tan ofjahor, drove the Portuguese out. At the end
of the 18th century, the British established their
trading colony on the northern shore of Borneo
and, in 1819, purchased Singapore from the sultan
of Jahorc, which they managed as an outpost to
secure passage through the Straits of Malacca and
the Singapore Straits. Shortly thereafter the British
concluded a treaty with the Dutch guaranteeing
the latter's hegemony in the East Indies (now
Indonesia).

Through the 19th century the British con-
trolled the ports of Penang, Malacca, and Singa-
pore into which they encouraged immigration
from China and India to provide cheap labor for
the tin mines and rubber plantations. Beginning
in 1870 the British encouraged the formation of
protectorates over the several sultanates on the
Malaysian Peninsula and later in the northern
half of Borneo (including Brunei). British rule
was not welcomed by many Malays, including
Muslim religious leaders who regarded the Brit-
ish as kafirs (disbelievers). The Japanese invaded

and occupied the region during World War II.
After the war continuation of British colonial rule
became increasingly untenable, which led to inde-
pendence in stages through the 1950s and 1960s.
With independence in 1957, Islam was named
the state religion. The National Mosque (Masjid
Negara), completed in 1965, serves as a symbol of
Islam, the country's dominant faith.

Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy consist-
ing of 13 states and one federal territory. Each state
has a parliament and a chief minister. The chief
ministers of nine of the states are hereditary rul-
ers known as sultans who also oversee the Islamic
affairs of their respective states. Every five years
there is an election and one of them is selected as
monarch. There are four states (Penang, Malacca,
Sabah, and Sarawak) that are governed by chic!
ministers appointed by the government. There is
also a national parliament elected by the people
with the prime minister the highest elected offi-
cial. Sarawak and Sabah have no designated head
of Islam, but the king oversees the religious affairs
of Penang and Malacca.

In 1965 a council for Islamic affairs was cre-
ated. Operating out of the prime minister's office, it
coordinates the efforts of the state councils, which
advise the sultan on religious matters. The state
and national legislatures have some power in legis-
lating for the Muslim community. The constitution
of Malaysia contains a provision affirming freedom
of religion. At the same time, Islam is the official
state religion. The practice of forms of Islam other
than Sunni Islam is restricted significantly. Hari
Raya Puasa (the end of the fasting season of Rama-
dan), Hari Raya Qurban (the Feast of the Sacrifice
at the end of the hajj pilgrimage), and the Prophet
Muhammad's birthday (mawl/d) have been desig-
nated official national holidays. The issue of Mus-
lims wishing to convert to another faith, primarily
Buddhism or Christianity, has been a sensitive one
in Malaysia. Ethnic Malays must overcome partic-
ularly difficult obstacles to leave the Islamic faith
for another religion. In 2001 a High Court judge
ruled that the constitution defined an ethnic Malay

Malcolm X 453

as “a person who professes the religion of Islam.”
There are few obstacles to anyone who wishes to
convert from Buddhism or Christianity to Islam.

During the last decades of the 20th century
and the early 21st century Malaysia has been
dominated by the United Malays National Orga-
nization (UMNO), seen as the more moderate
political party of the Muslim community. It is
opposed by the Parti-Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), a
more conservative group that has as its stated goal
the transformation of Malaysia into an Islamic
state that would adhere to sharia law, including its
punishments, such as amputation and stoning.

Sec also Buddhism and Islam; Bumiputri; Dar
ul-Arqam; colonialism; crime and punishment; Id
al-Adha; sultan.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: R. W. Hefner, The Politics of Multi -
culturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Sin-
gapore, and Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 2001); J. A. Nagata, The Reflowering of Malaysian
Islam: Modern Religious Radicals and Their Roots (Van-
couver: University of British Columbia Press, 1984);
Michael G. Peletz, Islamic Modern: Religious Courts and
Cultural Politics in Malaysia (Princeton. N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 2002); P. Sloane, Islam, Modernity,
and Entrepreneurship among the Malays (New York: St.
Martin’s Press in association with St. Antony's College
Oxford. 1999).

Malcolm X (Malcolm Little) (1925-1965)
Black nationalist, activist, and Muslim leader who
advocated Black pride and separatism for African
Americans

Malcolm Little, the future Malcolm X, was born in
Omaha, Nebraska, and grew up primarily in Bos-
ton. His father, Earl Little, was a Baptist minister
who openly supported the United Negro Move-
ment and its leader, Marcus Garvey (1887-1940).
Consequently the family endured frequent threats
from white extremist groups. These threats even-

Malcom X (Library of Congress)

tually culminated in their fathers murder. Later
Malcolms mother was institutionalized due to
stress and mental illness, and, as a result, Malcolm
was separated from his family and went to live
with his half-sister, Ella, in Boston. Subsequently
he entered a phase of crime, gambling, and drug
abuse. In 1946 he was charged with robbery and
imprisoned in Massachusetts. It was in this con-
text that Malcolm was introduced to the Nation
of Islam. At the age of 22, he became a self-
avowed member of the movement, passionately
supporting its teachings, including the perception
of whites as a “devil race,” the need for black lib-
eration and separatism, and the goal of displaying
personal discipline through modest Islamic dress
and eating habits. Malcolm left prison in 1952
and began working for Elijah Muhammad (1897-
1975), the leader of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm
idolized Elijah and soon took a leadership posi-
tion within the Nation. During this time Malcolm

Maliki Legal School 455

Further reading: Yasin Dutton, The Origins of Islamic
Law: The Quran , the Muwatta and Madinan Atnal (Lon-
don: Routlcdge Curzon, 2002); Wael B. Hallaq. The
Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005).

Maliki Legal School

One of the four approved schools (sing.: madl i-
hah) of Sunni Islamic law, the Maliki derives
its name from the eighth-century scholar of
Medina Malik ibn Anas (d. 795). Maliks text Al-
Muwatta is one of the foundational legal tomes
of the Maliki school. His approach places almost
exclusive emphasis upon the Quran, hadith, and
Medinese practice (amal) as sources of Islamic
law. In contrast, Malik's near-contemporary Abu
Hanifa (progenitor of the Hanafi Legal School)
drew upon personal reasoning (ray) in addition
to the textual sources of the Quran and hadith in
his legal formulations.

Highly respected as a scholar and collec-
tor of hadith, Malik passed on his knowledge
to many students, who carried his doctrine
throughout Muslim lands. In the decades after his
death, Maliks teaching established a following in
Qayrawan (modern Tunisia), Andalusia, (modern
Spain), and Iraq. These locations later became
centers of the nascent Maliki madhhab and were
home to influential Maliki scholars such as the
Tunisian Abd al-Salam Sahnun, and the Andalu-
sians Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi and Muhammad
IBN RUSHD (Averroes). Maliki teaching later died
out in Andalusia, due to the Christian reconquista,
and it was supplanted by the Shafii Legal School
in Iraq and Medina. However, the Maliki School
would experience great success in North and
West Africa, where it remains the dominant mad-
hhab to this day.

The early Maliki insistence upon traditional
Medinese practice gave the school a decidedly
practical emphasis. This can be seen in the Maliki
development of istislah, a procedure that gives pre-
cedence in some cases to a tangible human inter-

est over a legal conclusion reached through strict
analogical reasoning. However, Maliki jurists have
always looked with suspicion upon the principle
of qiyas (the use of analogy in legal judgments),
unlike their brethren in the Hanafi and Shafii
schools. The Maliki disinclination to use qiyas is
such that Maliki jurists sometimes preferred to
base their judgments upon weakly attested hadith
rather than to employ analogy. While accept-
ing the concept of ijmaa (scholarly consensus),
Maliki scholars have frequently given preference
to the ijmaa of Medina, since it was the city of the
Prophet and his companions, as well as the home
of Malik himself.

These particular emphases have led to distinct
Maliki stances on matters such as inheritance law,
marriage and divorce, and dietary restrictions.
However, in most areas, Maliki law is surprisingly
similar to the positions of the other Sunni legal
schools. Like them, the Maliki madhhab has had
to adapt to changing circumstances over time.
Initially hostile to mystical practices, Malikis
eventually learned to coexist with Sufi customs as
the latter became widespread throughout North
and West Africa. Many Muslims now adhere to
both Maliki law and a Sufi order. The modern
era has brought various innovative approaches
and a heightened debate regarding the essence
of Islamic law. Despite these new circumstances,
the Maliki madhhab remains firmly established
in African Islam, a situation that is unlikely to
change in the foreseeable future.

See also FIQH.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: Jonathan E. Brockopp, Early Maliki
Law: Ibn Abd al-Hakam and His Major Compendium of
jurisprudence (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000); Joseph Kenny,
The Risala: Treatise on Maliki Law of Abdallah Ibn Abi
Zayd Al-Qayrawani (922-996) (Islamic Edition Trust,
1992); Malik ibn Anas, Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik Ibn
Anas: The First Fonnulation of Islamic Law. Translated
and edited by Aisha Abdurrahmann Bewley. (The
Islamic Classical Library Series, Kegan Paul Inti., 1989);

456 mam Ink

Mansour H. Mansour, The Malihi School of Law: Spread
and Domination in North and West Africa 8th to 14th Cen-
turies c.E. (Bcthcsda, Md.: Austin and Winfield. 1995).

mamluk

Mamluk means "thing possessed'* in Arabic and is
usually used to refer to a military slave. Mamluks
were introduced into the Islamic lands by the
Abbasid caliphs al-Mamun and al-Mutasim in the
early ninth century C.E. Al-Mamun (r. 813-833)
seized the throne after a civil war and, feeling he
could not rely on the loyalty of the traditional
army, he turned instead to slave troops. His
younger brother, al-Mutasim (r. 833-842), spear-
headed this project of acquiring slave soldiers,
and he continued the process when he became
caliph upon al-Mamun’s death. Reliance upon a
mamluk military elite is one of the unique char-
acteristics of medieval and early modern Islamic
government. It continued under the Ottoman
sultans until the end of the 19th century.

Mamluks usually came from Central Asia or
eastern Europe, where they were purchased as
young boys who were either prisoners of war or
sold into slavery by their families who knew the
potential for power and prestige that awaited them
as mamluks. Upon their purchase the mamluks
were converted to Islam, placed in a dormitory
with fellow mamluks , and launched on an EDU-
CATION that included some religious instruction
but focused primarily on the military sciences,
in particular the cavalry. Upon "graduating " from
this program the mamluk was manumitted, but
he remained in a close bond of loyalty to his pur-
chaser, a caliph, sultan, prince, or high mamluk
officer. This bond was considered comparable to
the relationship between father and son.

The strength and appeal of the mamluk system
lay in the high military acumen of the mamluks
and their complete loyalty and devotion to the
ruler who had purchased and trained them. That
this loyalty was essentially personal constituted
the systems chiel drawback. It therefore strength-

ened the rule of one caliph or sultan, but loyalty
was not necessarily or easily transferred to his
successor. With this in mind, hopefuls often spent
their time as princes purchasing and training
their own mamluk troops. The ability to pull off
a smooth transition of power, however, depended
not only on the strength of the prince's mamluks
vis-a-vis his predecessor's but also on his ability
to convince at least a few of these latter mamluks
to swear an oath of loyalty to him. Thus a system
initiated to strengthen the military and preserve
the empire also brought with it real risks. Under
the Abbasids, the mamluk Turkish commanders
accrued more and more authority, on occasion
even killing the caliph. Although this state of
affairs was denounced by the ULAMA and political
theoreticians, no ruler could circumvent his own
need for mamluks.

Reflecting the overall strength and appeal of
this system, in Egypt and Syria mamluks ruled in
their own right from 1250 to 1517, making their
regime, rather aptly named the Mamluks, one of
the longest and most durable Islamic regimes of
the medieval period. The very nature of the sys-
tem ensured that only the most capable rose to the
highest positions of power, a characteristic that
served all sides for many centuries.

See also Abbasid Caliphate; Delhi Sultanate;
Janissary.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: David Ayalon, Gunpowder and Fire-
arms in the Mamluk Kingdom: A Challenge to a Mediaeval

Society (London: F. Cass, 1978); . Islam and the

Abode of War: Military Slaves and Islamic Adversaries
(London: Variorum, 1994); Matthew S. Gordon, The
Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turk-
ish Military of Samarra (a.h. 200-275/815-889 c.E.)
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001); P.
M. Holt, “The Structure of Government in the Mamluk
Sultanate." In The Eastern Mediterranean Lands in the
Period of the Crusades, edited by P. M. Holt. 44-61 (Wer-
minister, England: Aris and Phillips, 1977).

martyrdom 457

Manat See goddess.

Mappila See India.

maqam (Arabic: place, station)

Maqam has several meanings in Islamic religious
contexts. In the most widespread sense it denotes
a sacred place that commemorates a SAINT. Found
in North Africa and the Middle East, such shrines
consist of a domed building, inside of which is the
saint’s tomb. This tomb is enclosed by a screen, and
often covered by layers of cloth brought as gifts by
visitors and pilgrims seeking the saint's blessing
( raraka ). Disciples and members of the saint's fam-
ily are often buried in the same chamber or nearby
in the courtyard or adjacent buildings. Descendants
of the saint, or his or her devotees, often serve as
caretakers for the shrine. A maqam may be located
in a crowded urban neighborhood, in a village, or
in uninhabited areas. People visit it on the occasion
of the saints birthday (mavvl/d), religious HOLIDAYS,
or in connection with life-cycle rituals.

Muslims regard the Station (maqam Ibrahim)
of Abraham as one of the most important places
inside the Grand Mosque of Mecca. In the Quran
it is called a prayer place (Q 2:125) and is located
the northwest wall of Gods house, the Kaaba.
Pilgrims perform prayers there after circumam-
bulating the Kaaba. Commentaries and narratives
about Mecca's mythic history affirm that it was
originally a stone from paradise that Abraham
stood upon to make his universal call to perform
the HAJJ. It was believed that he left his footprint
in it. Some commentators maintained that the
Station of Abraham originally referred either to
the larger sanctuary or to another location in the
sacred territory surrounding Mecca.

The third meaning of maqam in Islam is a “sta-
tion" on the mystical path to God. It was used as
a technical term in the vocabulary of the Sufis. A
station was attained by the intentional efforts of
the mystic, in contrast to the HAL, which was a

spontaneous gift from God. The spiritual seeker
had to perfect each maqam before progressing to
the next. The number, names, and sequence of sta-
tions varied greatly among Sufi authors and orders.
They prescribed 4, 7, 50, 100, and even 1,000 sta-
tions. In the 11th century Al-Qushayri listed 50
stations starting with “repentance" and ending with
“yearning," whereas al-Ansari's list of 100 began
with “wakefulness" and ended with “unity." In a
different vein. The Conference of the Birds, a Persian
epic poem by Farid al-Din Attar (d. ca. 1220),
depicted a mystical journey through seven valleys,
each representing a maqam on the Su(i path: “seek-
ing," “love," “knowledge," “detachment," “unity,"
“bewilderment," and “annihilation.”

In Arab, Persian, and Turkish MUSIC, maqam
refers to one of several different modes, or musi-
cal scales.

See also Sufism; wall

Further reading: Farid Ud-Din Attar, The Conference
of the Birds (New York: Penguin Books, 1084); Carl W.
Ernst, The Shambhala Guide to Sufism (Boston: Shamb-
hala, 1997); Ali ibn Uthman al-Hujwiri, The Kashf al-
Mahjub: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism. Translated
by R. A. Nicholson (1959. Reprint, New Delhi: Taj
Printers, 1997); Francis E. Peters, The Hajj: The Muslim
Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1994): 6-9, 16-17; Michael
Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic
and Theological Writings (New York: Paulist Press,
1996), 102-103.

market See bazaar.

martyrdom

Martyrdom ( shahada ) in Islam is intimately linked
to the obligation of jihad (“struggle" for the faith).
Traditionally, the martyr (Av. sing shahid ), has sev-
eral contexts of meaning in Islam. (1) The martyr
can offer up his/her life to defend Islam and the
Sunni vmma, or majority religious community,

martyrdom 459

of paradise." Variants of this “bird" tradition
state that the martyrs' souls are “like birds with
God,” “turned into green birds," “in the bellies of
birds,” or are “in the crops of green birds." These
birds are said to “nestle in (golden) lamps that
are hung (muallaqa) under the Throne of God,"
and their dwellings are near the “lote tree of the
boundary.”

In modern times, the definition of shahid has
widened to include any personal/individual “sacri-
fice” for God’s cause or “trial" sent by God result-
ing in death, such as dying abroad, dying from
epidemic disease or natural disaster, in childbirth,
by pleurisy or drowning, to protect ones family
or property, and finally the jihadist “effort" of the
ULAMA (“the ink of the scholars is of more value
than the blood of the martyrs”). The widespread
politicization of Islam after the 1960s has led to
Shii ideologies of martyrdom linked to the political
jihad of “revolution," as in the discourse of Ayatol-
lahs Khomeini, Taliqani, and Mutahhari in Iran, or
to guerrilla “resistance" movements that practice
proactive martyrdom, as in Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Models of Sunni martyrdom have also kept pace,
inspired by such jihadist ideologues and organiza-
tions as Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb of al-
Ikhwan al-Muslimun, or “Muslim Brotherhood,”
in Egypt; Abu al-Ala Mawdudi of Jamaat-i 1SLAMI
in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and northern India; and
Hamas, which has religiously underwritten Pal-
estinian intifada as an all-out civilian “resistance"
specializing in martyrdom/suiciDE bombings. Both
Shii and Sunni jihadist ideologies of martyrdom
arc part of a multifront religious “struggle" against
the hegemony of the West (whether interpreted
as European colonial/postcolonial regimes, such
as France in North Africa, Russia in Afghanistan,
Zionist Israel in the Arab Middle East, or active
imperialist powers in the Muslim world today, prin-
cipally the United States in its unilateral support
for and interventions on behalf of Israel and more
recent military presence in Saudi Arabia and post
9/11 incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq). Sunni
and Shii jihadists define their task as resisting

“secular" Western-style democracy and working
for sharia-oriented governments and reinfusions of
Islamic “values" in the Sunni umma throughout the
Muslim Middle East, southeastern Europe, Central
and South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Such postmod-
ern Muslim “fighters" for the faith and “martyrs"
for the umma now include women and children
as well as the more traditional male “soldiers" for
Islam. The “rewards" for these more tender martyrs
seem focused on how they will be remembered
in this world rather than on male-ordered defini-
tions of “paradise." They are willing to expend
their lives, using the power of their powerlessness,
against what they perceive to be a more powerful,
unjust, and oppressive enemy.

Sec also AFTERLIFE; JIHAD MOVEMENTS; SHIISM.

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Further reading: Sunni: David Cook, Martyrdom in
Islam (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007);
Maher Jarrar, “The Martyrdom of Passionate Lovers.
Holy War as a Sacred Wedding.' In Hadith: Origins and
Developments , edited by Harald Motzki (Burlington, Vt.:
Ashgate/Va riorum, 2004); Rudolph Peters, ed., Jihad in
Classical and Modern Islam , a Reader (Princeton, N.J.:
Markus Wiener, 1996); Christopher Reuter, My Life Is
a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing (Princ-
eton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004); David M.
Rosen, “Fighting for the Apocalypse: Palestinian Child
Soldiers." In Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War
and Terrorism (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University
Press, 2005). Shii: Mahmoud Ayoub, Redemptive Suffer-
ing in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of , Ashura y
in Twelver Shi’ism (The Hague: Mouton, 1978); Mehdi
Abedi and Gary Lcgcnhausen, cds. Jihad and Shahadat:
Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam (Houston: Institute
for Research and Islamic Studies, 1986); Kamran Scot
Aghaie, The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi’i Symbols and Ritu-
als in Modern Iran (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2004); Ali Naqi Naqvi, The Martyr of Karbala:
English Translation of Allama Ali Naqi Naqvi s u Shaheed-
e-insaniyat" (Karachi: Islamic Culture and Research
Trust/Mu ham madi Trust of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, 1984); Lara Deeb. An Enchanted Modern: Gender

mathematics 461

Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Heroine of the Qur'an and the
Black Madonna. In Mary through the Centuries: Her
Place in the History of Culture (New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1996); Aliah Schleifer, M ary
the Blessed Virgin of Islam (Louisville, Ky.: Fons Vitae,
1998); Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad, “The Virgin
Mary in Islamic Tradition and Commentary." Moslem
World 79:3-4 Quly-October 1989): 161-187; Barbara F
Stowasser, Women in the Quran , Traditions and Interpre-
tation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); W.
M. Thackston, trans. The Tales of the Prophets of al-Kisa'i
(Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978).

masjid See mosque.

matam Sec Husayniyya.

mathematics

Mathematics occupied a prominent place on
the scientific scene in the Arabo-Islamic empire.
Although all works were translated into or written
in Arabic, all ethnic and religious communities of
the empire produced scholars who contributed to
mathematics. The Arabo-Islamic scholars digested,
commented on, summarized, and then built upon
their predecessors' works regardless of their reli-
gion or ethnicity; their contributions to mathemat-
ics, regardless of its nature or size, were absolutely
crucial for any further developments in the field.
Translation of other works received its biggest
thrust under the patronage of the Abbasid caliph
al-Mamun (r. 813-833). Mathematical works were
translated from sources such as Greek/1 lellenistic,
Persian, and Indian. A list of translators, trans-
lated books, and scholars was produced by Ibn
al-Nadim (10th century) in his encyclopedic book
al-Fihrist.

In the field of arithmetic, the Arabo-Islamic
scholars identified Indian arithmetic as the most
efficient, from which they borrowed and perfected
Indian numerals, the decimal system, the place-

value and the ideas of zero, fractions, root extrac-
tions, and associated operations. Later on, they
integrated received and translated knowledge into
a coherent body, which was then subject to further
refinement.

The field of algebra was inaugurated by the
work of al-Khawarizmi (ninth century). He
introduced a complete terminology for solving
arithmetical and geometrical problems through
radicals, the idea of the unknown, the idea of
equations, the first and second-degree equa-
tions, algorithmic solutions, and the demonstra-
tion of the solution formula, lie actually gave
his name to all systematic and step-by-step
methods of solving problems, namely, the algo-
rithms. Thabit ibn Qurra (d. 901) later gave
a geometrical explanation of the equations of
al-Khawarizmi. However, it was al-Khayyam (d.
1123) who elaborated a geometrical theory for
equations of degree equal to or less than three. A
full treatment of the solution of cubic equations
was given two generations later by Nasiral-Din
al-Tusi (d. 1274).

The Arabo-Islamic scholars added original
contributions in all areas of the great Greek
geometrical tradition, including laying the foun-
dations of geometry, geometric constructions,
geometric transformations, and projections.
In addition, they established the connection
between geometry and algebra. Finally, in trigo-
nometry they devised trigonometric formulae
for a triangle (these formulae were originally
given for a sphere), and they defined and intro-
duced the tangent function. These contributions
found applications in astronomy, engineering,
optics and music. Many of the works of the
Arabo-Islamic mathematicians were translated
into Latin after they entered Europe through
trading contacts with Byzantium, Spain, and
Sicily, and through interactions occasioned by
the Crusades.

See also Andalusia; science.

A. Nazir Atassi

462 Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala

Further reading: Ibn al-Nadim, The Fihrist of al-Nadim:
A Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture. Translated by
Bayard Dodge (New York: Columbia University Press,
1970); Roshdi Rashed, cd. Encyclopedia of the History
of Arabic Science. Vol. 2, Mathematics and the Physical
Sciences (London: Routledge, 1996).

Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala (Maudoodi)

(1903-1 979) leading Muslim revivalist thinker
and founder of the Jamaat-i Islami movement in
India-Pakistan

Abu al-Ala Mawdudi was born in Awrangabad,
India, to a family claiming descent from Sufi
saints of the Chishti order who had migrated to
India from Afghanistan in the 15th century. His
father, Sayyid Ahmad Hasan, had close ties to the
Mughal court before the dynasty was overthrown
by the British in 1858. Later, Sayyid Ahmad and
other members of Mawdudi family were among
the first to be educated at the Muhammadan
Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, which was
dedicated to providing Muslims with a modern
Westernized EDUCATION in order to prepare them
to participate in the colonial government of Brit-
ish India.

Mawdudis thought benefited from a diversified
educational career that began at home, where Sayyid
Ahmad organized a traditional Islamic curriculum
for him, consisting of Urdu and Persian learning,
elementary Arabic, and tales drawn from Islamic
history. Western learning was intentionally omitted
by his parents, because they wanted him to have
a solid grounding in Islamic tradition for a career
as a religious scholar. His formal education began
when he enrolled in a public school, where he was
exposed to the natural sciences and other modern
subjects. Mawdudi proved himself to be a gifted
student of Arabic, and he demonstrated his skills
in completing an Urdu translation of a work by the
Egyptian modernist writer Qasim Amin (d. 1908)
on the rights of women. At the age of 16 he was
forced to give up schooling because of his father's
failing health. To provide for himself and his fam-

ily, he began a career as a writer. A few years later
he moved to Delhi, where he continued to study
Persian and Urdu literature, but he also immersed
himself in the work of European philosophers and
modern Muslim intellectuals. He sought to grasp
the similarities and differences between traditional
knowledge and modern thought. By the time he
reached age 20, Mawdudi had developed close ties
to leading ulama of the Deoband School and took
up advanced studies in the traditional branches of
Islamic learning, as well as Sufism, rhetoric, logic,
and philosophy. He completed his formal studies in
1926 at the Fatihpuri madrasa in Old Delhi, and he
was certified to be one of the ulama. However, his
career took a different turn, and his status as a reli-
gious scholar remained concealed from the public
until after his death.

Mawdudi became a journalist and undertook
involvement in various causes, eventually becom-
ing one of India's leading Muslim political figures.
He wrote briefly for a Delhi nationalist newspaper,
but he was then appointed as editor for the official
newspaper of the Jamiyyat Ulama-i Hind (Society
of Indian Ulama), known as Muslim (later changed
to Jamiat). In this position he wrote articles on
issues important to Indian Muslims at the time,
and he embarked on a life-long effort to promote
the revival of Islam. His first major book was Jihad
in Islam , a compilation of articles he wrote in 1925
to defend his religion against Hindu and British
critics. During the 1920s Mawdudi supported the
Indian nationalist movement and the Khilafat
Movement, a campaign among Muslims in British
India that ended when the caliphate was officially
abolished by the Turkish republic in 1924. lie also
supported the Hijra Movement (Tahrik-i Hijrat),
which advocated Muslim emigration from India
as long as it was ruled by non-Muslims, namely,
the British.

Mawdudi moved to Hyderabad (Deccan), one
of the last remaining centers of Muslim political
power, in 1928. Declaring, “In reality I am a new
Muslim," he soon became what would today be
called an Islamist. The waning power of Muslim

464 m awl id

his call for all Muslims to join together to form
a single UMMA (community) of believers modeled
after that of Muhammad and his Companions in
the seventh century. Ideally this Islamic state was
to be one that transcended all national, ethnic, and
racial boundaries, governed only by God’s law, the
sharia. Mawdudi was careful to say that he was not
calling for the creation of a theocracy on the model
of the medieval papacy in Europe. Rather, his
Islamic state was to be a “theo-democracy" gov-
erned by a collective polity united in faith, acting
as God’s caliph on earth. The Jamaat-i Islam was to
be the elite vanguard that would bring his utopian
vision to fruition, and its participation in Pakistani
politics was directed to this end. Women and non-
Muslims, however, held secondary or marginal
status in Mawdudi’s eyes, and he came to see Hin-
dus, Sikhs, and Ahmadis as enemies of his cause.
Although his movement has not engaged in overt
militancy, his ideology is thought to have con-
tributed to the radical jihadist doctrines of Sayyid
Qutb and a number of radical Islamic movements
that first emerged in the 1970s and 1980s.

See also Chishti Sufi Order; colonialism;
Islamism; renewal and revival movements.

Further reading: Charles J. Adams, “Mawdudi and the
Islamic State." In Voices of Islamic Resurgence , edited by
John L. Esposito, 99-133 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1983); Abu Ala Maududi, Towards Understanding
Islam. Translated by Khurshid Ahmed (Chicago: Kazi
Publications, 1992); Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, “Mawdudi
and the Jamaat-i lslami: The Origins, Theory, and
Practice of Islamic Revivalism. In Pioneers of Islamic
Revival, 2d cd., edited by Ali Rahncma, 98-124 (Lon-
don: Zed Books, 2005).

m awl id (Arabic: birthday; anniversary)

At the center of popular Muslim devotional-
ism from North Africa to Southeast Asia and in
Muslim diaspora communities is the mawlid , or
celebration of the birth or death anniversary of a
holy person (wal/, shaykh, pir). Other words used

for this kind of popular celebration are variants
such as mulid (Egypt), mulud (North Africa),
milad or id-i milad (Middle East, Pakistan, India,
Bangladesh); rnevlid and mevlut (Turkey); as well
as alternate terms like mawsim (or musim , literally
“season"; North Africa), urs (literally “wedding,"
referring to the saints mystical union with God;
Pakistan, India, Bangladesh), hawliyya (Sudan
and East Africa), hoi (Malaysia), and zeuda (Tuni-
sia). They may occur at almost any time of the
year, except during Ramadan. The most widely
celebrated mawlid is that of Muhammad the
Prophet (d. 632), which occurs on the 12th day
of Rabi al-Awwal, the third month on the Muslim
lunar calendar. Mawlids have been celebrated
since the 13th century, closely coinciding with the
spread of Sufi brotherhoods (sing, tariqa) and the
establishment of non-Arab dynasties that sought
legitimacy in the eyes of their subjects by patron-
izing popular saints and their shrines. Mawlids
and the customs associated with them have been
judged to be illicit innovations (sing, b/daa) by lit-
erally minded Muslims — above all by proponents
of Wahhabism, who have prohibited them in Saudi
Arabia and protested or violently attacked their
celebration elsewhere.

Mawlids are usually centered at the shrine
or tomb of the holy person who is honored by
the holiday, or, as is the case with celebration of
Muhammad's birthday ( mawlid al-nabi , mawlid
al-rasul ), at a shrine containing his relics, or
dedicated to one of his descendants, such as the
mosque of Husayn near al-AzHAR Mosque in Cairo.
The celebration may be a modest affair, confined
to the neighborhood of the shrine, but the mawl-
ids of the most famous saints now draw a million
or more from great distances, who consider their
journey to the shrine a pilgrimage (z/vara). Such
celebrations may last up to a week or more, with
the climax occurring on the eve of the last day.
Though formal prayer is customarily performed
at these shrines, celebrants engage in a wide range
of activities. These include decorating the shrine,
circumambulating the saints tomb, leaving votive

Mecca 465

gifts, processions, animal sacrifice, circumcising
boys, Quran recitation, all-night Sufi DHIKR ses-
sions, devotional songs, feasting, dancing, tat-
tooing, and acquisition of blessed souvenirs to
take back home. Commercial activity as a rule is
brisk at a tnawlid, and special markets are set up
for the larger ones. Mawlids are often attended by
non-Muslims. Moreover, the Coptic Christians of
Egypt celebrate the tnawlid s of their saints, as do
Middle Eastern Jews theirs.

Mawlid also denotes a devotional song that
praises Muhammad and celebrates the event of his
birth, often embellished with legends. It is com-
monly performed in connection with the anniver-
sary of his birth, other saints' holidays, and other
celebratory occasions.

See also: Ashura; al-Badawi, Ahmad; baraka ;
holidays; qawwali ; sayt/d; Sufism.

Further reading: Nicholaas H. Biegman, Egypt: Moulids,
Saints, Sufis (London: Kcgan Paul International, 1990);
P. M. Currie, “The Pilgrimage of Ajmer.' In Religion in
India, edited by T. N. Madan, 237-247 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991); Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B.
Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in
South Asia and Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2002); Anncmaric Schimmel, And Muhatnwad Is
His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic
Piety, 144-158 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-
lina Press, 1985); Nancy Tapper and Richard Tapper,
“The Birth of the Prophet: Ritual and Gender in Turk-
ish Islam.” Man, New Series 22, no. 1 (March 1987):
69-92; Peter van dcr Veer, “Playing or Praying: A Sufi
Saint’s Day in Surat Journal of Asian Studies 51. no. 3
(August 1992): 545-564.

Mecca (also Makkah)

A number of cities have been regarded as sacred
centers in the history of religions. Varanasi
(Banaras), Mathura, and Ayodhya in India are
among those considered sacred by Hindus, lse is
sacred to the Japanese, and Jerusalem is sacred to
Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The most sacred

city in Islam is Mecca, followed by Medina, Jeru-
salem, and, for the Shia, Karbala and Najaf. Like
these other cities, its special status as a holy city
is based on events narrated in sacred history that
are believed to have occurred there, its distinctive
architectural landscape, and the complex of ritual
practices that arc performed there.

In Islamic sacred history, Mecca, which is
known as “Ennobled Mecca” (Makka al-Mukar-
rama), is where Muslims believe that Abraham
and his son Ishmael built the Kaaba and where
Ishmacl and his mother Hagar are buried. It is
the birthplace of Muhammad (ca. 570-632) and
where he received the early revelations of the
Quran. Indeed, another epithet for the city is
“Dwelling Place of Revelation." Many of his wives
and Companions were also born there, and it was
the ancestral home of the Umayyad and Abbasid
caliphs. According to accounts related by Muham-
mad ibn Abd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Azraqi (d. 837),
who wrote a history of the city, it is called the
“Mother of Towns" (utntn al-qura ) because it is
where the CREATION of the earth began. His book
also tells about how Adam traveled there from
India, his home after being expelled from para-
dise, to be reunited with Eve and perform the first
HAJJ rites, setting a precedent for performing these
rites that would be reconfirmed in later times by
Abraham and Muhammad.

Mecca is situated in a valley amidst the Sirat
Mountains in the western region of the Arabian
Peninsula known as the Hijaz. It is about 45 miles
inland from the city of Jedda, which is located
on the Red Sea coast. Its distinctive architectural
landscape is defined by ritual spaces in the city,
in the adjacent valley of Mina, and in the plain of
Arafat. The ceremonial center of the urban ritual
complex is the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba
and the well of Zamzam are situated, and the
concourse between the hills of Safa and Marwa,
which is located on the northeastern side of the
mosque. The Valley of Mina contains the three
satanic pillars that are stoned by pilgrims at the
conclusion of the hajj. About seven miles past

‘ CsSS3 466 Mecca

The Sacred Mosque in Mecca, as depicted in Ottoman ceramic tilework in the Sabil-Kuttab of Abd al-Rahman
Katkhuda (18th century), Cairo, Egypt. The Kaaba is in the center, Safa and Marwa in the foreground, and the
sacred mountains of Arafat and Light are in the background. (Juan E. Campo)

Mina is the plain of Arafat, which has a hillock
called the Mount of Mercy and two mosques —
Namira and Muzdalifa. The cave nearby in the
Mount of Light is where Muhammad is said to
have received his first revelation. There are many
other sites in Mecca containing traces of past
events in Islamic sacred history, but the passage
of time, urban development, and the conservative
nature of Saudi rule have combined to erase many
of them.

The legendary holiness of the city of Mecca
and the distinctiveness of its landscape are inex-

tricably connected to an amalgam of ritual prac-
tices and celebrations, which intensify during the
annual hajj season. In addition to the five daily
prayers, these rites include sevenfold circum-
ambulation of the Kaaba, sevenfold “running"
between Safa and Marwa, communal gatherings
in Mina and Arafat, stoning Minas three pillars,
animal sacrifices and feasting during the Id AL-
Adha, and collecting water at the Zamzam well.
The Quran is recited, sermons arc delivered, and
pilgrims pronounce special ritual phrases and
petitions to God. During the hajj, pilgrims are

468 Mecca

and seized the Kaaba's Black Stone. Mecca’s dis-
tance from the centers of political power provided
the Sharifs, a local aristocracy claiming descent
from the AHL al-bayt through Muhammad's grand-
son Hasan (d. 669), with opportunities to main-
tain order and exercise power in the Hijaz region
in varying degrees from the 10th century until
the fall of the last sharif of Mecca to Saudi forces
in 1924. His heirs were subsequently made the
Hashemite kings of Transjordan (now Jordan) and
Iraq by the British. Meanwhile, the Fatimid and
Ayyubid dynasties exercised what amounted to
indirect control over Mecca between the 10th and
13th centuries, followed by the Mamluks (13th to
16th centuries), and the Ottomans (16th to 20th
centuries). The largesse of these rulers, together
with religious endowments (waqfs) established
by pious individuals, were what provided the city
with the infrastructure, financial resources, and
even food supplies needed to serve its inhabitants
and pilgrims through the centuries.

The creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
in 1932 has inaugurated an era of epic change for
Mecca. The Wahhabi outlook of the country has
led to the eradication of many of its shrines and
Sufi landmarks. The government, however, has
been very careful to protect and improve the sites
of the required hajj rituals to keep up with the
growing numbers of pilgrims and win the good
will of Muslims around the world. Within two
years after taking control of the city in 1924, King
Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (1880-1953) upgraded the
electrical system of the Sacred Mosque, widened
adjacent roads for the passage of automobiles,
and built the city's first paved road. The Saudis
conducted two major hajj building projects in
1955-78 and 1980-95. The latter construction
phase is estimated to have cost S155 million,
financed by the government from its oil revenues.
The expansion and upgrading of the Sacred
Mosque and adjacent neighborhoods has, how-
ever, led to the loss of much of the city's venerable
architectural heritage, to the chagrin of archi-
tectural historians and cultural preservationists.

Commercial development of the precincts around
the Sacred Mosque has resulted in the erection
of luxury hotels, shopping malls, and high-rent
residential complexes. As an indication of the
importance Mecca has to the Saudi government,
the governor of Mecca Province, which includes
both Mecca and Jedda, is always a member of the
royal family.

Because of Mecca's geography and climate, its
population has been small for most of its history.
An Ottoman census of its inhabitants in the early
16th century counted only 12,000, excluding
merchants and soldiers. However, a recent census
demonstrates how much the city has grown thanks
to modern technologies, mechanized transport,
and economic development. In 2004 it had an
estimated population of 1.7 million. Likewise,
the influx of pilgrims has grown at an astounding
rate since the beginning of the 20th century. An
estimated 83,000 pilgrims participated in the hajj
of 1807; by the beginning of the 21st century over
two million were thought to be performing the hajj
annually. At other times of the year the unira now
brings an additional 1.5 to 2 million pilgrims.

Even with all of the aspects of modernity that
have become embedded in Mecca's sacred land-
scape, it continues to serve as a vital religious sym-
bol in the everyday lives of Muslims everywhere.
When they pray they face toward it, when they
read the Quran they are reminded which of its
chapters were revealed there, when they study the
hadith they arc studying the words of people who
are believed to have been born there. The imagery
of Mecca has been captured in poetry and art, and,
more recently, on television and the Internet.

See also: Adam and Eve; Arabian religions,
pre-Islamic; Companions of the Prophet; Emi-
grants; goddess; Hashimite dynasty; Sufism.

Further reading: Hamza Bogary, The Sheltered Quarter:
A Tale of a Boyhood in Mecca. Translated by Olive Kenny
(Austin: University of Texas Press. 1991); Richard F. Bur-
ton, A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to al-Madinah
and Meccah. 2 vols. (1855. Reprint. New York: Dover,

Medina 469

1964); Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987);
Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under
the Ottomans (London: LB. Tauris, 1994); C. Snouck
Hurgronje, M ekka in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth
Century: Daily Life , Customs and Learning, The Mos-
lems of the East Indian Archipelago. Translated by J. H.
Monahan (Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1970); Richard T. Mortel,
“Ribats in Mecca during the Medieval Period: A Descrip-
tive Study Based on Literary Sources," Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies 61, no. 1 (1998):
29-98; E E. Peters, Jerusalem and Mecca: The Typology
of the Holy City in the Near East (New York: New York
University Press, 1986); , Mecca; A Literary His-

tory of the Muslim Holy Land (Princeton, N .J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994); W. Montgomery Watt, Muham-

mad at Mecca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953);
Mai Yamani, Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the Quest for
Arabian Identity (London: LB. Tauris, 2004).

Medina (Arabic, city; al-Madina al-
Munawwarah [the Radiant City], Madinat
al-Nabi [City of the Prophet], Madinat
al-Rasul [City of the Messenger])

Medina, which had a population of 918,889 in
2006, is located in Saudi Arabia, 210 miles north ol
Mecca and about 1 20 miles from the Red Sea coast.
The umma, or religious community, was formally
established in Medina after Muhammad's emigra-
tion from Mecca to Medina in 622 c.E. (called the
Hijra), which became the first year of the Islamic

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Medina the Radiant. Traditional poster, with the Throne Verse from the Quran (Q 2:255) inscribed in the frame.
The prophet Muhammad’s mosque, encompassing his domed tomb, is shown in the center.

470 Medina

CALENDAR, 1 A.H. (anno hijri, or the year of the
Hijra). It became the administrative center and
capital of the growing Islamic empire in its initial
period of expansion from the central province of
Hijaz bordering the western coast of Arabia to
encompass the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria,
Iraq, and Iran by the end of the Rashidun Caliph-
ate, 632-661. By the death of the fourth CALIPH,
Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 636-661 C.E.), cousin and son-
in-law of Muhammad, the capital would move to
Damascus under the Umayyad Caliphate, and later
to Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphate.

Medinas history during the lifetime of Muham-
mad (ca. 570-632) is witnessed in part in the
Quran as well as other contemporaneous sources,
the maghazi texts (which discuss Muhammad's
battles), the HADITH (narratives of the Prophets
sunna, or customary words and deeds), and later
hagiographical materials such as Muhammad ibn
Ishaq's al-Sira al-Nabawiyya , or biography of the
Prophet. All of these texts mark the history of
Muhammad's settlement in Medina, the growth
of the first unwia, and its spread to unite the Ara-
bian tribes through battle and through treaty (and
often diplomatic marriage between Muhammad
and the daughter of another tribe). A history of
intertribal conflict and warfare with the Jewish
and pagan tribes of Medina, such as the Banu
Aws and Banu Khazraj and their clients the Banu
Nadir, Banu Qurayza, and Banu Qaynuqa, cre-
ated a need for a strong and effective arbitrator
and mediator, an opening Muhammad accepted
in order to establish the Muslim community and
Islam as a social and political as well as spiritual
reality. According to the Sira of Ibn Ishaq, the
Muslims and Jewish tribes of Medina signed an
agreement, the "Constitution of Medina," which
bound them to peaceful coexistence.

Medinas importance after its brief period as the
political capital was primarily as a religious center
in Islam, originating one of the four branches of
Islamic law, namely, the Medinan school (madh-
hab ) of Malik ibn Anas (ca. 715-796), and as the
burial place of Muhammad, a number of the AHL

AL-BAYT ("People of the House" of the Prophet),
and early companions. These places became sites
of pilgrimage in their own right, especially for
Muslims who were visiting Mecca for the umra
and the HAJJ. Thus all Sunni Muslims visit the
Prophet's tomb and home MOSQUE in Medina when
doing pilgrimage and Shii Muslims visit it for
that reason and to visit the gravesites of several
of the Imams. Medina is the second holiest city in
Islam, second only to Mecca, due to its intimate
connection with the Prophet and the foundation
of the unwia. The Prophet's mosque is in the east-
ern section of the city and a green dome lops the
mausoleum. The mosque of the Prophet has been
successively enlarged from its dimensions as his
house and PRAYER place to an enormous complex
with multiple MINARETS encompassing his tomb
and permitting the approach of the enormous
number of annual pilgrims who visit the site par-
ticularly during Ramadan and the annual ha jj .

See also Ansar; cities; Companions of the
Prophet; Emigrants; Judaism and Islam; ziyara.

Kathleen M. O Connor

Further reading: Yasin Dutton. Malik ibn Anas, and
Muhammad ibn Muhammad Ra'i, Original Islam: Malik
and the Madhhab of Madina (New York: Routledge,
2007); Emcl Esin and Haluk Doganbey, Mecca the
Blessed , M adinah the Radiant (New York: Crown Pub-
lishers, 1963); Muhammad ibn Ishaq, The Life of
Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaqs Sirat Rasul Allah.
Translated by Alfred Guillaume (London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1967); Michael Lecker, Muslims, Jews and
Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1995); Michael Lckker, “Muhammad at Medina,
a Geographical Approach." Jerusalem Studies in Ara-
bic 6 (1985): 29-62; Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Ali K.
Nomachi, Mecca the Blessed, Medina the Radiant: The
Holiest Cities of Islam (New York: Aperture Foundation,
1997); H. Rahman, “The Conflicts between the Prophet
and the Opposition in Medina," Der Islam 62 (1985):
260-297; Muhammad ibn Saad, The Women of Madina
(London: TaHa. 1995); Muhammad ibn Saad, The Men
of Madina (London: TaHa, 1997); W. Montgomery

' CssPD 472 Mevlevi Sufi Order

Turkish children enact a Mevlevi samaa dance at a
school in Nigde, Turkey. (Juan E. Campo)

secured a teaching position, which Rumi took
over when his father died. Rumi was a respected
teacher of Islamic sciences until his meeting with
a mysterious figure named Shams, who inspired
him to write his ecstatic poetry, and Shams intro-
duced him to the whirling dance known as samaa.
After his death in 1273, Rumis circle of followers
was organized into the Mevlevi order, the supervi-
sion of which was claimed by Rumis descendants,
who came to be called Chelebi. Rumis son Sultan
Walad (d. 1312) played an important role in the
formation of the order, and his name was later
incorporated into Mevlevi ritual.

Novices who were accepted into the order
were initiated in a ceremony, after which they
became known as muhibb. After a trial period of
1,001 days of service to the TEKKE (dervish lodge),
another ceremony was held elevating the muhibb
to the rank of dervish. Advanced dervishes could
be appointed SHAYKHS, giving them the right to lead
a tekhe. Mevlevi dervishes wore a cloak ( khirka )
and a conical hat called a sikke. They were encour-
aged to learn the samaa, which involved a long
period of instruction. The actual dance consists
of repetitive counter-clockwise rotation with the
right arm raised upward and the left downward,
performed in four separate cycles to the accom-

paniment of music. The principal musical instru-
ments used were the reed flute (nay) and a pair of
small kettledrums ( kudum ).

The Mevlevi order came into prominence
in the Ottoman period, spreading throughout
Anatolia and to the Balkans and the Arab lands.
It benefited from the patronage of Ottoman SUL-
TANS, and in one period the Chelebis were given
the honor of girding new sultans with a sword at
their enthronements. Some sultans were also said
to be affiliated with the order. The Mevlevi order
in general appealed to the upper classes and intel-
lectuals. Mevlevi dervishes studied and produced
art in the tekkes, and many famous Ottoman poets,
composers, and calligraphers were Mevlevis. The
order came to be known in Europe when travelers
reported their observations of the whirling dance.

Mevlevi tekkes were closed along with those
of all dervish orders in Turkey in 1925, and the
samaa was prohibited. The central tekke at Konya,
which houses the tomb of Rumi, was later opened
as a museum. In 1953 the samaa was allowed to
be performed in public, but as a cultural exhibi-
tion, rather than a religious ritual. Today, some
Mevlevis continue the tradition in Turkey, but it
has practically disappeared in the Balkans and
Arab countries. The Mevlevi order has, however,
influenced the ritual practices of other orders,
such as the Jcrrahis, who perform a similar samaa.
The dance continues to be performed as a tour-
ist spectacle, once a month in the Galata lodge
in Istanbul, and annually in Konya at the com-
memoration of Rumi in December. In Europe and
North America, the poetry of Rumi and Mevlevi
rituals has attracted a new generation of spiritual
seekers.

See also Ottoman dynasty; Persian language
and literature; Seljuk dynasty; Sufism.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Ira Shems Friedlander. The Whirling
Dervishes (New York: MacMillan, 1975); Talat Sait Hal-
man and Metin And. Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi and the
Whirling Dervishes (Istanbul: Dost. 1983); Franklin D.

474 minaret

minaret (Arabic: manara “beacon,” also
midhana “place for making the call to
prayer”)

Many of the world's major civilizations have
developed distinct forms or "languages" of reli-
gious ARCHITECTURE that have become emblematic
for those civilizations and their dominant reli-
gious traditions. Examples include the pyramids
of Egypt and Mexico, the great Hindu temple tow-
ers of India, Buddhist stupas (large hemispherical
structures containing sacred relics of the Buddha),
as well as the towers and spires found on many
Christian churches and basilicas. For Islam, per-
haps the most distinctive architectural form is
the minaret, a tower where the ADHAN , or call to
PRAYER, is performed. It stands within the sacred
space of a MOSQUE. The minaret's antecedent is
thought to have been the rooftop of Muhammad's
house-mosque in Medina, where Bilal, a former
slave and one of the first Muslims, made the daily
adhan. Later, in the wake of the early Arab con-
quests, churches seized from Christian opponents
in Syria were converted into mosques and their
towers were used for making the call to prayer.

The minaret as a specialized architectural
form, however, did not develop until after the
ninth century, especially in Sunni-majority regions

Mamluk (left) and Ottoman (center) minarets of
Cairo, Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

of the Middle East. It became a very prominent
religious signature on the Islamicate urban land-
scape. In addition to providing a place for making
the adhan , the minaret informed people where
the mosque was located and often symbolized the
wealth and power of the individual or group who
built and maintained it. In addition to mosques, it
was also included in the architecture of medieval
madrasas, Sufi hospices, and shrines. Minarets can
be square or cylindrical in shape, or a combina-
tion of both. Most have an interior spiral staircase
that leads to one or more balconies at the top,
where the muezzin stands to do the adhan. Many
arc made of stone, but wood, adobe, and concrete
have also been used. They arc often embellished
with elaborate ARABESQUE designs, or bear Arabic
inscriptions, but some have little decoration if
any. Typically a mosque will have only one mina-
ret, but imperial mosques often have two or more,
indicating that their symbolic importance exceeds
the practical purpose for performing the call to
prayer. Minarets have been added to preexist-
ing buildings, as was the case for the Aya Sofia
Mosque in Istanbul, which had been the chief
basilica for the Byzantine Empire until the city
was taken by the Ottomans in 1453. The reverse
happened in Andalusia (Islamicate Spain), where
the towering minaret La Giralda of Seville's Friday
mosque was transformed into a bell tower after
the city was captured by Christian armies in the
14th century. The same occurred at the Great
Mosque of Cordoba. Today, mosques in many
Muslim countries are equipped with electronic
sound systems for broadcasting the adhan , but the
minaret has not been eliminated and continues to
possess symbolic importance.

Different minaret styles have evolved in dif-
ferent parts of Islamdom, just as different kinds
of church towers developed in lands with large
Christian populations. These include the multi-
storied sculptured Mamluk minarets of 13th- to
16th-century Cairo, which are topped by one or
more bulblike decorations. North African and
Andalusian minarets are square towers. Otto-

moon 479

Further reading: Said Amir Arjomand. The Turban for
the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1988); Ryszard Kapuscin-
ski, Shah of Shahs (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1985);
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, The Shah's Story. Translated
by Teresa Waugh (London: Michael Joseph, 1980).

monotheism See tawhid.

moon

The moon (Arabic qamar) has assumed a distinc-
tive importance in Islamic tradition. The appear-
ance of the new or crescent moon ( hilal ) defines
the beginning of each of the 12 lunar months in
the Islamic calendar. According to the sharia the
hilal has to be seen with the naked eye in order for
the first day of the month to be declared, although
there arc differences among the Muslim jurists
about this matter. This practice, which is pre-
Islamic in origin, is particularly important in iden-
tifying the beginning of the new year on the first
day of Muharram, the beginning of the month of
required fasting on the first day of Ramadan, and
the beginning of Id al-Fitr (the Feast of Fast-
Breaking) after Ramadan on the first day of the
10th month of the Islamic calendar (Shawwal).
Observation of the phases of the moon became
an important topic in Islamic astronomy. There
were also special prayers performed in the event
of either a lunar or a solar eclipse.

The Quran mentions the moon 26 times. One
of its chapters, named “The Moon,'* describes the
splitting of the moon as an event that precedes
Judgment Day (Q 54), but this event was later
claimed to be a miracle performed by Muham-
mad (d. 632) in proving his prophethood to the
unbelievers of Mecca. In other instances the moon
is discussed as an aspect of God's creation, along
with the sun and the stars, that submits to its cre-
ator (Q 22:18) and signifies one of God's blessings
for humankind (Q 14:32—34). The moon is to be
used as the basis of the calendar (Q 10:5). It also

appears in the story of Abraham's conversion to
the worship of only one God, where he mistakes
the moon for his lord ( rabb), but then rejects this
belief when he sees that it waxes and wanes in its
rising and setting (Q 6:77). The Quran, moreover,
explicitly prohibits worshipping both the sun and
the moon (Q 41:37). In later Islamic poetry the full
moon was often used as a metaphor for the beauty
of the lover's face, as well as for Muhammad.

The crescent moon combined with a five- or
six-pointed star has become an emblem for the
Islamic religion, but only in recent times. They
appeared together on early Islamic coinage, per-
haps reflecting ancient Iranian, Roman, and Byz-
antine influences. They also occurred separately
in a variety of secular and religious contexts on
buildings and artifacts in Muslim lands during the
medieval period. They did not have great icono-
graphic importance until more recent centuries.
The crescent and star symbol began to be used on
military, imperial, and, later, national flags, first
by the Ottomans in the 15th and 16th centuries,
and subsequently by newly independent states in
the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and
Southeast Asia. These countries include Algeria,
Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Tuni-
sia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. Since the 19th cen-
tury the crescent-moon emblem has been used to
decorate mosques and other religious buildings.
Also, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has
accepted it as a symbol on gravestones of Muslim
soldiers, making it comparable to the cross for
Christians, the Star of David for Jews, the Wheel
of Dharma for Buddhists, and the Sanskrit word
Om for Ffindus.

Some Christian evangelical organizations
have claimed recently that Muslims are idolaters
who actually worship a moon god. This is an
unfounded assertion based on a mistaken inter-
pretation of Muslim use of the lunar calendar
instead of the solar calendar and of the crescent-
star emblem. Muslims do not worship the moon
or the crescent-star image in any way, as affirmed
by the Quran itself.

>4=^ 480 Morocco

See also Christianity and islam; flag; holi-
days; idolatry; Judaism and Islam.

Further reading: David King, “Science in the Service
of Religion: The Case of Islam.” Impact of Science
on Society 159 (1990): 245-262; Paul Lunde, “Pat-
terns of Moon, Patterns of Sun." Saudi Aramco World
55 (Novembcr-December 2004): 17-32; Annemarie
Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Ven-
eration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 1985).

Morocco

Located on the northwestern tip of Africa, Morocco
is a country roughly the size of California, with
geographical features and a population size (34.3

million, 2008 est.) also similar to those of Ameri-
cas most populous state. Moroccos Atlantic coast
stretches from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Canary
Islands, and extends even further if one includes
the Western Sahara (a disputed territory adminis-
tered by the Moroccan government since 1975).
The northern, eastern, and southern regions con-
tain several mountain ranges, including the Rif,
High Atlas, Middle Atlas, and Anti-Atlas. The
country's climate is semi-arid, with deserts in
the south and the cast. Between the Middle Atlas
and the Atlantic are Moroccos most fertile lands,
including the Sebou valley, home to the cities of
Meknes and Fez. Along with Marrakech, these
cities represent three of Morocco's four “imperial
CITIES,” with each serving as the country's capital
at different historical periods. In the 20th century,

The town of Chefchaouen in Morocco’s Rif Mountains, founded in the 15th century (Federico R. Campo)

Moses 483

They include accounts about God's selection of
both as his prophets, how both came into con-
frontation with their enemies as a result of their
belief in one God, how they received holy books
from God (the Torah and the Quran, respectively),
and how they experienced rejection by their own
people. There is also a parallel drawn between the
deliverance of Moses and the Israelites from Egypt
and the emigration (Hijra) of Muhammad and
his followers from Mecca to Medina. Just as the
pharaoh and his people were drowned in the sea,
the enemies of the Muslims were also threatened
with defeat and destruction. The Quran is clearly
seeking to underscore the validity of Muhammad's
status as a prophet by making these parallels. It
is also showing how the Jews, through their dis-
obedience, have broken their covenant with God,
and that it has been transferred to Muhammad
and his followers (Q 7:168-170).

Biblical events involving Moses also men-
tioned in the Quran arc his being cast away on
the waters as an infant by his mother to save his
life (Q 20:37-40); his killing of the Egyptian (Q
28:15); his escape to Midyan (Q 28:22-28); his
calling by a fire and a divine voice coming from
a tree (rather than a bush) by Mount Tur (Sinai,
Q 28:29-30); his performing signs and wonders
before pharaoh's court (Q 7:104-109); his 40-day
sojourn in the wilderness, where he received the
tablets from God at the mountain (Q 7:144-145);
and the Israelites' disobedience of his brother
Aaron (Harun) and worship of the golden calf (Q
7:148-149; 20:85-91). A story mentioned in the
Quran but not in the Bible is his journey to the
"meeting place of the two seas" and encounter
with a mysterious "servant of God," identified by
later commentators as Khadir (the green one), who
is more knowledgeable than Moses (Q 18:60-82).
Moses then travels with Khadir to acquire some of
his wisdom, but shows himself to be a less than
adept student. The stories of the prophets tradi-
tion elaborates on this and other narratives about
Moses, including the building of a temple for God
and the deaths of both Aaron and Moses in the

wilderness. In accounts concerning Muhammad's
Night Journey and Ascent, Muhammad enters
the sixth heaven and encounters Moses there
with his people. The biblical prophet declares
that Muhammad is more honored in Gods eyes
than he, and weeps because more of Muhammad's
community (umma) will enter paradise than of
his. Later in the story, Moses helps Muhammad
negotiate with God to reduce the number of daily
prayers Muslims are required to perform from 50
to five.

Over time Shiis and Sufis developed their own
distinctive understandings concerning the body of
narratives connected with Moses. The Shia sec in
the relationship of Moses with his brother Aaron
a prefiguration of Muhammad's relationship with
Ali 1BN Abi Talib (d. 661), his cousin, son-in-law,
and the first Shii Imam. They also include Moses
among the prophets through whom the authority
of the Imams was transmitted in the generations
preceding that of Muhammad and his cousin
Ali. In Ismaili Shiism, Moses is counted as one of
seven "speaking" prophets (the others are Adam,
Noah, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, and Muham-
mad ibn Ismail), who revealed God's law for all
believers to obey; whereas Aaron is one of seven
of seven "silent" prophets who convey the hid-
den truths of God's revelation to a select group
of believers. Sufis, for their part, have looked to
Moses's encounter with God at Sinai as an exem-
plary mystical experience, and they saw in his
success in splitting the sea and overcoming the 40
years of trial in the desert a model for those seek-
ing inspiration to pursue the mystic's path to unity
with God. Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273) taught that
Moses and pharaoh were contending spiritual
impulses embodied in each person, suggesting
that those guided by the light of Moses will dis-
cover that Sinai, the place of the encounter with
God, can be found in their own hearts.

During the 20th century the story of Moses's
confrontation with pharaoh has been invoked
by Islamists to justify their opposition to "dis-
believing" secular regimes and tyrannical rulers.

484 Moslem

Sayyid Qutb (cl. 1966) and jihad movements in
Egypt condemned Jamal Abd al-Nasir (d. 1970)
and Anwar al-Sadat (d. 1981), both presidents
of Egypt, for being equivalents to the unbeliev-
ing pharaoh who opposed Moses; members of
the Jihad Group assassinated al-Sadat for being
a disbeliever. During the Iranian Revolution of
1978-79, government troops were cautioned not
to “kill Moses [members of the Islamic opposi-
tion) for the sake of pharaoh [the Shah's regime).”
In other words, they were not to kill the Islamic
revolutionaries and their masses of supporters.
A well-known revolutionary poster of the time
showed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini standing
over a fallen shah, with the phrase “For every
pharaoh there is a Moses" inscribed over the
Ayatollah's head, thus identifying the revolution's
foremost leader with the prophet.

Sec also imam; Islamism; Judaism and Islam;
KAFIR ; PROPHETS AND PROPHECY.

Further reading: Gillcs Kcpcl, Muslim Extremism in
Egypt: The Prophet and the Pharaoh . Translated by Jon
Rothschild (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1985); John Renard, All the Kings Falcons: Rumi on
Prophets and Revelation (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1994): 67-86; Ahmad ibn Muham-
mad al-Thalabi, Arm's al-majalis fi qisas al-anbiya, or
" Lives of the Prophets .” Translated by William M. Brin-
ner (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002): 278-414; Robert Tottoli,
Biblical Prophets in the Quran and Muslim Literature
(Richmond, England: Curzon Press, 2002); Brannon
Wheeler, Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis (Lon-
don: Routledge, 2002).

Moslem See Islam.

mosque (Arabic: masjid, ritual prostration
place)

A hadith that proclaims the entire world a mosque
indicates that Muslims may pray anywhere as long
as certain rules are observed. Chief among these

is correct orientation toward Mecca, the qibla.
An object placed in front of the person at PRAYER
insures the integrity of the qibla by acting as a
barrier (sutra) between this person and passersby.
Ritual purity is required for the person and the
prayer area. One way of insuring it is to reserve a
cloth or rug exclusively for prayer. By conforming
to these rules, Muslims can fulfill prayer obli-
gations several times a day (the number varies
among sects but is often five). These individual
acts of prayer then create a mosque every time
they take place regardless of the availability of
buildings created specifically for this purpose.
The absence of liturgical rituals in Islam also
makes mosque buildings unnecessary, though
they have always existed in large numbers and
varied forms.

The phrase masjid junta (Friday mosque) or
masjid jami (“collective" or community mosque)
refers to mosques used for required group prayers
on Fridays. The historical forerunner of these
mosques is considered the mosque built by
Muhammad at Medina. In the past, the jami was
distinguished by the presence of a M INBAR and was
always associated with cities. These were the first
mosques to acquire monumental form, a process
that began in 705-715.

Mosques quickly acquired a standard set
of forms and elements. The earliest ones were
divided into two parts, a covered prayer hall and
an open courtyard. The far wall of the prayer hall
is the qibla wall. A niche M IHRAB marks the center
of this wall in proximity to the minbar } with the
two defining an important area (maqsura) often
covered with a dome. Ablution fountains {may-
daa) appear in or at the edges of the courtyard.
Tall towers (minarets) mark mosques visually and
transmit their presence audibly in as much as the
call to prayer (adhan) is sometimes transmitted
from them. This basic template was always subject
to variation according to location, population,
and sectarian divergences; and books of mosque
rules became a prominent genre in the Middle
Ages. Historically, the only constants were the

486 m on I id

Muhammad’s mosque in Medina, and the Aqsa
Mosque in Jerusalem. The Shia would also add
the mosque-tombs of their Imams, such as those
of Ali IBN Abi Talib (d. 661) in Najaf (Iraq) and
Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 680) in Karbala
(Iraq). Contemporary mosques are designed to
accommodate new social requirements and envi-
ronments, although they continue some of the
older roles played by mosques. They are sel-
dom combined with shrines any more, but they
continue to serve educational as well as ritual
purposes. Mosque building continues to be an
important undertaking in modern Muslim societ-
ies, even among Muslims who have migrated to
Europe and North America.

See also ARCHITECTURE; BAZAAR.

Nuha N. N. Khoury

Further reading: Martin Frishman and Hasan Uddin
Khan, cds., The Mosque: History ; Architectural Develop-
ment , and Regional Diversity (New York: Thames and
Hudson, 1994); Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic
Art (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973);
Renata Holod and Hasan Uddin-Khan, The Mosque and
the Modern World: Architects , Patrons , and Designs since
the 1950s (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997); David
McCauley, The Mosque (New York: Houghton Mifflin,
2003).

moulid See m awlid.

Mudejar

Muslims residing willingly as subjects of a Chris-
tian kingdom of the Iberian Peninsula (see Anda-
lusia) were known as Mudejars. The phenomenon
of Mudejarism emerged with the Christian capture
of Muslim territories, for example Toledo (1083),
and concluded with the decrees of compulsory
conversion to Christianity (1501, 1515, 1526). The
Spanish term mudejar derives from an Arabic verb
connoting inter alia the taming of wild animals.
Mudejarism differs conceptually from the Quranic

status of DHIMMI (protected peoples) that Muslims
accorded non-Muslim “People of the Book” resid-
ing in Islamic territories. Whereas Islamic law
protected non-Muslims, the Mudejars could be
disenfranchised and enslaved with impunity.

The survival of Mudejar culture and institu-
tions depended upon whether the capture was
accomplished through negotiated surrender or
military defeat, the ratio of Muslim to Christian
populations, the competing interests of the mon-
archy and the papacy, and economic exigencies.
For instance, during the conquest of the Balearic
Islands, the Muslims of Menorca refused to surren-
der and were enslaved. In Aragon, Navarre, Castile,
and Portugal, however, many Mudejars capitulated
following negotiations between local Muslim rulers
and the Christians. In theory, these treaties safe-
guarded Mudejar property, customs, and institu-
tions provided they swore loyalty to the monarchy
and paid an annual capitulation tax. In practice,
however, Mudejar rights were often curtailed.

Congregational mosques were confiscated and
converted into churches. In Aragon, the Crown
appointed Islamic judgeships and judicial rulings
could be overturned in a higher Christian court.
In Navarre and especially Valencia, where the
Mudejar majority constituted an indispensable
economic “royal treasure,” Muslims were banned
from emigration to Islamic territories. Papal coun-
cil edicts ordering the use of distinguishing cloth-
ing for Muslims (Fourth Lateran Council, 1215)
and prohibiting the call to prayer and Muslim pil-
grimages (Council of Vienna, 1311) were applied
in Castile and Aragon, but rarely enforced in
Valencia. Increasingly from the 13th century,
Mudejars were confined to ghettos ( aljamas ).

Mudejar institutions declined as the supply
of competent teachers of Arabic and the Islamic
sciences diminished. In response, the Mudejars
developed strategies of cultural resistance. Isa
ibn Jubayr of Segovia translated the Quran and
an abridged sunna into Romance (Latin-derived
languages) for the Mudejars who no longer under-
stood Arabic. Mudejars banned from travel abroad

mufti 487

wrote to Muslim jurists (muftis) to seek legal
opinions (fatwas) regarding how to preserve
Islam under Christian rule. Mudejar jurists and
preachers urged the strict application of Islamic
ritual purity and morality codes in everyday life.
Such strategies also challenged uncompromising
judges such as Muhammad Ibn Rushd (d. 1122),
who condemned the Mudejars for remaining in
non-Muslim territory.

Under the patronage of Christian monarchs,
Mudejars collaborated in the translation schools
that transmitted classical and Islamic knowledge
to western Europe. Mudejar architects, artisans,
and institutions left their cultural imprint on the
Iberian Christian kingdoms. Mudejar ARABESQUE
decorations and brickwork appear in churches
and palaces built in Spain and Portugal and in the
Americas from the 16th century. Following the
royal decrees of compulsory conversion to Chris-
tianity, Mudejars came to be known as Moriscos.

See also architecture; Christianity and Islam.

Linda G. Jones

Further reading: John Boswell, The Royal Treasure:
Muslim Communities under the Crown of Aragon in the
Fourteenth Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1977); Robert 1. Burns, Islam under the
Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century
Kingdom of Valencia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1973); L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250
to 1500 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990);
Khalcd Abou cl Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minor-
ities: The Juristic Discourse on Muslim Minorities
from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth
Centuries." Islamic Law and Society 1, no. 3 (Novem-
ber 1994): 141-187.

muezzin (Arabic: muadhdhin)

The muezzin is the man who performs the daily
call to prayer (adhan). His counterpart in a church
would be a bell ringer. According to Islamic tradi-
tion the first muezzin was Bilal ibn Rabbah (d.
ca. 641), one of the Companions of the Prophet

known for his beautiful voice. Eventually the
muezzin became part of the staff employed in a
mosque. In the early days he would do the call
from any high point in the mosque so that people
in the surrounding neighborhoods could hear
that prayer time had arrived. When the minaret
became a standard feature of mosque architec-
ture, the muezzin would climb its winding stairs
to the top to do his job. Muezzins were also hired
to accompany caravans that traveled to Mecca
for the hajj. In modern times they use a public
address system without having to climb up the
minaret, and people can now also hear their calls
to prayer via radio, television, and portable elec-
tronic devices.

Further reading: Barr)' Hoberman, “The First Muez-
zin." Saudi A rant co World 34 (July-August 1983): 2-3;
Scott L. Marcus, Music in Egypt: Experiencing Music,
Expressing Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007): 1-15.

mufti

A mufti is a Sunni Muslim trained in Islamic
law, the sharia, who has the authority to issue
formal legal opinions called fatwas. This persons
counterpart in Shii contexts is called a MUJTAHID.
The opinions given by a mufti arc informed by
the Quran, the sunna, and legal tradition. They
can be solicited by individuals or government
officials and political authorities. This function
appeared early in the Muslim community when it
determined that it must strive to apply the legal
prescriptions of the Quran and sunna to the daily
needs of the newly emerging Islamic religious and
political order in the Middle East. Unlike a judge
( qadi ), a mufti's ruling was not necessarily tied
to a court case, nor was it final. Rather, it had to
contend with advisory opinions issued by other
muftis. However, the decisions of muftis were col-
lected in books and played an instrumental role in
the development of the Islamic legal tradition. At
first muftis were paid by donations from private

Mughal dynasty 489

the final interpreter of Islamic law alarmed the
ULAMA, or religious leaders. Akbar also supported
architecture and the arts, integrating Muslim and
Hindu traditions to create a distinctive Mughal
style.

Akbar's heir, Jahangir (r. 1605-28), lacked
his father's administrative and military abilities.
During Akbar's reign, European powers became
an increasing presence in India, with Portuguese,
English, and Dutch merchants establishing trad-
ing posts such as Bombay, Goa, and Calcutta.
Jahangir’s son, Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58), initially
launched a fresh wave of conquest, capturing
parts of the Deccan and halting the Portuguese
in Bengal. He then turned much of his energy to
building projects, including the Taj Mahal, built
as a tomb for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal,
who died in 1631 while giving birth to her 14th
child. Under Shah Jahan, Delhi became one of the

great cities of the Muslim world. However, his
lavish expenditures drained the imperial treasury,
while trade fell increasingly into the hands of
European powers. In 1658 his son Aurangzeb (r.
1658-1707) seized the throne, imprisoning his
father and having his brothers killed.

Aurangzeb ruled with a reformer's zeal. An
intensely devout Sunni Muslim, he declared
SHARIA, or Islamic law, the law of the land, and
strictly enforced regulations against drinking,
gambling, and prostitution. He reinstated the
jizya, or tax on non-Muslims, while abolishing all
taxes not authorized by Islamic law. The reintro-
duclion of the jizya meant that the tax burden fell
most heavily on the empire's Hindu population,
while the abolition of other taxes reduced the
empire's revenues overall. Although he succeeded
in capturing the sultanates of Bijapur and Gol-
conda, he was unable to subdue the Marathas, a

Taj Mahal (17th century), built by Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, Agra, India (Juan E. Campo)

492 Muhammad

erupted when the leading tribes of Mecca fell into
a dispute when rebuilding the Kaaba about who
would place the sacred black stone in its southern
corner. He had the stone placed on a large cloth
and instructed representatives of the different fac-
tions to join in lifting the cloth and carrying it to
the shrine. Then he took the stone and placed it in
the corner of the temple himself, thereby resolv-
ing the crisis.

Muhammad’s career as a prophet did not begin
until later in life, around the year 610, when he was
about 40 years old. Accounts say that he would go
into the mountainous wilderness outside Mecca
on retreats. It was during a retreat to Hira, a cave
in a nearby mountain, that he had a vision of the
angel Gabriel (the Quran indicates the vision was
of God himself) and received the first quranic rev-
elations, which commanded, “Recite in the name
of your lord who created, created humans from
a clot of congealed blood. Recite, and your lord
is most generous, who taught by the pen, taught
humans what they did not know" (Q 96:1-2).
Muhammad was reportedly profoundly shaken
by this encounter and sought reassurance from
Khadija and Waraqa ibn Nawfal, a male relative
of hers familiar with Jewish and Christian scrip-
tures. They convinced him that the revelation
was truly from God. When Muhammad made his
revelations public, he was suspected of being a
soothsayer inspired by spirits known as jinn. But
a message he received from God confirmed for
him that this was not the case (Q 52:29). Rather,
he was God's prophet sent to remind people in
clear Arabic speech that they should worship God
alone, follow "the straight path," and give up their
pagan ways. He also warned them that they would
be accountable on Judgment Day for their dis-
belief, at the same time promising that those who
had true faith and performed good deeds need
not fear — they would be rewarded in paradise. In
addition to their beliefs, therefore, Muhammad
warned his listeners that God would judge them
on moral grounds, especially for their treatment of
the poor and the weak. The early chapters of the

Quran that he communicated to his listeners were
delivered in a terse, energetic style, as if to signal
the urgency of his message. Later chapters were
more prosaic, featuring elaborated descriptions of
the afterlife, moral teachings, and stories about
former prophets and the fates of those who failed
to heed them. Many of these prophets' stories were
drawn from the Jewish and Christian Bible, and
from post-biblical narratives that circulated orally
among the peoples of the Middle East. Although
the Quran tells us very little about Muhammad’s
life, these tales about earlier prophets, especially
Abraham and Moses, were indirect commentaries
on key moments in his own career — his encoun-
ters with God, his struggles against idolatry and
persecution, and his mission to win believers.

The early sources also maintain that Muham-
mad went on a miraculous journey from Mecca
into heaven one night, mounted on a winged
animal and guided by Gabriel. This legendary
event, known as the Night Journey and Ascent,
appears to be mentioned briefly in the Quran (Q
17:1), but the story was continually elaborated in
the following centuries along the lines of other-
world journeys mentioned in pre-Islamic Jewish
and Christian literatures, where the journeys were
undertaken by holy figures like Enoch and Paul.
According to Islamic accounts, Muhammad visited
different levels of heaven, where he met holy fig-
ures such as Adam, Jesus, John the Baptist, Joseph
the son of Jacob, Idris (probably Enoch), Moses,
and Abraham. Finally, after visions of paradise and
the fires of hell, he encounters God and receives
the instructions for performing the five daily
prayers. Muhammad then returned to Mecca.

The sources indicate that Muhammad's message
was heeded by individuals from a cross-section of
Mecca's society, starting with his own family — his
wife Khadija, paternal cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib
(d. 661), and members of the clans of his mother
and father. When he began to preach in public, he
won followers like Abu Bakr (d. 634), a merchant,
and members of the most powerful branches of
the Quraysh tribe, such as Umar ibn al-Khattab

Muhammad 493

(cl. 644) and Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656). These
four men were to become the first four caliphs, or
successors to Muhammad, after his death in 632.
Many of the converts were young Arabs of mod-
est social standing, including women. There were
also freedmen and slaves such as Bilal ibn Rabbah
(d. 641), an Ethiopian, who would become the
first MUEZZIN for the community. Muhammad's
early prophetic pronouncements, together with
the growth of a religious movement that appealed
to diverse members of Meccan society, stirred
vehement opposition among the wealthy and
powerful, especially the leading clans of the
Quraysh. They felt that he was not only attacking
their religious and tribal values, but he was also
threatening their lucrative pilgrimage businesses.
By 615 their ire appears to have become so intense
that Muhammad was obliged to dispatch a group
of his followers to Ethiopia for protection under
that country's Christian rulers. This was called the
first Islamic Hijra (emigration). Back in Mecca,
believers were subjected to verbal attacks, ostra-
cism, and an unsuccessful boycott.

Muhammad's position became especially tenu-
ous when his uncle Abu Talib and his wife
Khadija both died in 619, leaving him without his
two most respected guardians. He began to search
for new allies outside of Mecca, and finally found
them in Yathrib, an agricultural settlement about
275 miles north of Mecca. In his negotiations
Muhammad agreed to serve as a mediator between
the two leading tribes in the town, the Aws and the
Khazraj, in exchange for their conversion to Islam
and permission to migrate there with his follow-
ers. His followers quietly began to leave Mecca.
Barely escaping a plot against his life, Muhammad
joined the rest of the Muslim emigrants, about 70
in number, in Yathrib around September 24, 622.
This was the second Hijra, but the one that would
be forever remembered by Muslims as the Hijra,
which was later proclaimed to mark the first year
on the Muslim lunar calendar. Yathrib eventu-
ally became known as the City (madina) of God's
Prophet, or simply Medina.

MUHAMMAD IN MEDINA

After his arrival, Muhammad recruited his follow-
ers to help him build his house, which became
the main mosque for the early Muslim community
(umma), and Islam's second most sacred mosque
after that of Mecca. He also established a cov-
enant, the so-called Constitution of Medina, that
affirmed the mutual rights and obligations of the
Emigrants ( muhajirun ) from Mecca and Muham-
mad's Medinan converts, the “Helpers'* (Ansar). It
affirmed the legal status of Jews and non-Muslim
Arab members in Medina, and prohibited any
alliances with the community's enemies. It also
declared that any disputes were to be resolved by
referring them to God and Muhammad. The chap-
ters of the Quran that are traditionally ascribed
to this period of Muhammad's career reflect the
changing fortunes of the young community. They
continue to affirm and expand upon key themes
from the Meccan period, but they also contain
rules and guidelines for the faithful concerning
worship, almsgiving, family law, relations with
non-Muslims, and incitements to act in defense of
the community against its enemies.

Soon after arriving in Medina, Muhammad
was drawn into open warfare with his opponents
in Mecca, the Quraysh and their allies. He also
had to contend with opposition from Jewish tribes
in Medina, namely, the Banu Nadir and the Banu
Qurayza, who refused to recognize his authority
as prophet and formed secret alliances with the
Quraysh. In 624 skirmishes with Meccan caravans
led to the Battle of Badr, which ended in victory
for the Muslims. This was a momentous event for
the young community, in which, according to the
Quran, 3,000 angels were sent to help the faith-
ful (Q 3:123-125). Another clash at Uhud in 625
ended in a nearly disastrous defeat for the Mus-
lims and the wounding of Muhammad. The Mec-
cans assembled a large force of 10,000 warriors (a
probable exaggeration) in April 627 and laid siege
to Medina for about a month. The confrontation,
known as the Battle of the Ditch, ended with the
withdrawal of the Meccan forces and the alleged

‘ CtfS3 494 Muhammad

extermination of Banu Qurayza males because
some of them conspired with the Quraysh against
Muhammad. The Muslims and the Quraysh nego-
tiated a peace in 628 that allowed Muslims to
go to Mecca the following year for the UMRA, or
“lesser" pilgrimage. A minor infraction of the
treaty was used by Muhammad to justify an attack
on Mecca, the city of his birth. It fell to Muslim
forces with minimal loss of life in January 630.
One of the factors contributing to their triumph
was the conversion of Abu Sufyan, the leader of
Muhammad’s Quraysh opponents. Muhammad
then launched a campaign to destroy the idols
worshipped in Mecca and the surrounding towns,
but some reports say that he exempted pictures
of Jesus and Mary that had been kept inside the
Kaaba with other idols. Even though Mecca was
now under Muslim rule, Muhammad declared
that he preferred to keep his home in Medina.

During this phase in Muhammad's career he
established alliances with Arabian tribes, which
included their conversion to Islam, lie also
ordered successful attacks on oases and towns
along the roads that led northward into Syria and
Iraq. In 627-28 Byzantine forces defeated the Per-
sians who had been the main power in the region.
This created a situation that Arab Muslim forces
would take advantage of after Muhammad's death
to defeat both the Byzantines and the Persians and
create a new empire in their place.

Muhammad performed a “farewell hajj" to
Mecca in 632. Muslim commentators say that it
was on this occasion when he pronounced the fol-
lowing verse from the Quran: “Today I perfected
your religion (din) for you, perfected my grace
for you, and desired that Islam be your religion"
(Q 5:2). According to the account furnished by
Ibn Ishaq in the Sira, Muhammad instructed the
faithful on how to perform the rites of the hajj
and gave a sermon in which he stated, “Time has
completed its cycle and is as it was on the day God
created the heavens and the earth" (Ibn Ishaq, p.
651). After completion of the hajj he returned to
Medina, where he suddenly fell ill and died in

the lap of Aisha, his wife, on June 8, 632. He was
buried by his Companions in his house, where his
grave is now marked by the Green Dome of his
mosque in Medina.

MUHAMMAD'S LEGACY

The Quran lays the foundations for Muslim under-
standings of Muhammad. It not only places him in
the ranks of former prophets known to the Bible
and the Arabs, but it also sets him apart from them
at a higher rank. It declares him to be the Seal of
the Prophets “who has knowledge of everything"
(Q 33:40), which Muslims interpret to mean that
he is the last of the prophets to bring God’s word to
humankind. Muhammad is called al-nabi al-ummi
(Q 7:158), which has been widely understood by
Muslims as an affirmation of his being an “unlet-
tered prophet" who received his religious knowl-
edge only from God and not from human sources.
Additionally, the Quran calls him the “beautiful
model" (al-urwa al-hasana ) for those who hope for
God and the last day" (Q 33:21).

Muhammad is believed to excel in the quali-
ties of moral excellence and physical perfection,
serving as the example for others to emulate
through his SUNNA, as recorded in the hadith. All
of the Islamic schools of law regard the sunna as
one of the “roots" of FIQH (jurisprudence), sec-
ond only to the Quran. In addition to countless
biographies written about him, a sizeable body
of Islamic literature concerned with detailing his
virtues, known as the shamail, was composed by
Muslim writers, one of the most prominent of
whom was Qadi lyad (d. 1149), a Maliki jurist in
Andalusia and Ceuta. The Shia venerate Muham-
mad both as the last prophet and as the father of
the Imams. He is one of the five members of the
People of the House (ahl al-bayt ), together with
Fatima, his daughter, Ali, his cousin and son-in-
law, and their sons Hasan and Husayn. All of the
Sufi brotherhoods traced their spiritual lineage to
Muhammad. Moreover, those influenced by Ibn
al-Arabi (d. 1240) and Islamic Neoplatonism,
identified the Prophet's beauty and excellence

' CsSS3 496 Muhammad Ali dynasty

(Reading, England: Garnet Publishing, 1998); F. E.
Peters, Muhammad and the Origins of Islam (Albany:

State University of New York Press, 1994); . A

Reader on Classical Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994, 44-98); Maxime Rodinson, “A
Critical Survey of Modern Studies of Muhammad. In
Studies on Islam, edited by Merlin Swartz, 23-85 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1981); , Muham-

mad. Translated by Anne Carter (New York: New Press,
2002); Anncmarie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His
Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985);
Barbara Stowasser, Women in the Quran: Traditions and
Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994);
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and States-
man (London: Oxford University Press, 1961).

Muhammad Ali dynasty

This dynasty was founded by Muhammad Ali
Pasha (r. 1804-48) when he was appointed gov-
ernor of Egypt by the Ottoman sultan in gratitude
for his help in defeating the French forces in Egypt.
Muhammad Ali was determined to both modern-
ize Egypt and establish an independent dynasty
there. A man of amazing drive and ambition, he
achieved both. He was succeeded by his descen-
dants Abbas (r. 1848-54), Said (r. 1854-63),
Ismail (r. 1863-79), Tawfiq (r. 1879-92), Abbas II
(r. 1892-1914), Husayn Kamil (r. 1914-17), Fuad
(r. 1917-36), and Faruq (r. 1936-52).

Muhammad Ali is considered the father of
modern Egypt; he set Egypt on the path of rapid
modernization and industrialization, forces that
were then continued by his successors. His grand-
son, Ismail, once expressed his conviction to Euro-
peanize Egypt, stating: "My country is no longer
in Africa, it is now in Europe." Ismail encouraged
the development of a European-educated Egyptian
elite while at the same time holding on to a tradi-
tional and autocratic view of his own authority. He
was granted the title of khedive from the Ottoman
sultan, which conveyed a form of royalty, and was
given permission to expand his own army and

issue his own currency. Ismail used the greater
freedom in economic affairs to fund his ambitious
development projects. In the process, however, he
drove Egypt into bankruptcy. In 1876 the British
took over the Egyptian economy and were drawn
further into Egyptian affairs when they forcefully
put down the popular Urabi revolt in 1882. Under
British occupation access to free EDUCATION was
restricted and Egyptian industry was neglected
while cotton production increased for export to
English factories. Egypt had not become a part of
Europe, but it had become a part of a European
empire and was forced to develop in ways that
benefited the colonizer more than the colonized.

In 1922 Britain declared Egypt independent,
and London elevated the status of the Egyptian
ruler to king. But the British undermined the idea

Muhammad Ali Mosque (19th century), Cairo Citadel,
Egypt (Juan E. Campo)

Muhammad al-Mahdi 497

of both independence and kingship by retaining
responsibility for communications and for defense
of Egypt as well as foreign affairs within Egypt.
Although a parliament and constitution were
also established, the effectiveness of both was lim-
ited as the monarchy, the parliament, and the Brit-
ish were in a continuous tug-of-war for control of
Egyptian affairs. The king looked to the British to
support him against the reforming efforts of the
parliament, ultimately undermining his authority
and hindering the development of the country.
Moreover, the king and the parliament, made
up of Western-trained elites, were cut off from
the majority of the people. Caught in their own
power struggles, they failed to address the real
and growing needs of the Egyptian people. Egypt
was crippled by social injustices and huge eco-
nomic disparities. The personal excesses of King
Faruq only confirmed the peoples perception
that the government was corrupt and irreligious.
The final blow to the old regime came with the
military catastrophe of 1948 when the Egyptian
army (along with those of Syria and Jordan) was
soundly defeated by the new state of Israel.

Political disorder and social disarray contin-
ued until popular riots broke out in January 1952.
A few months later the government fell in a mili-
tary coup d'etat led by Jamal Abd al Nasir. Three
days later King Faruq was forced to abdicate and
compelled to go into exile. There was no violence;
he set sail from Alexandria on the royal yacht
and spent the remainder of his life on the French
Riviera. In 1953 the monarchy was officially abol-
ished and Egypt was declared a republic.

The Muhammad Ali dynasty transformed
Egypt, laying the foundations for the govern-
mental infrastructure and administration that
are still the basis for Egyptian government today.
However, the dynasty also encouraged some of
the ideological and economic rifts that continue
to plague Egyptian society.

See also Abduh, Muhammad; colonialism;

RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman,
Workers on the Nile: Nationalism , Communism, Islam
and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954 (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987); Arthur Gold-
schmidt, Jr., Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-
State (Boulder, Colo.: Westvicw Press, 1991); Afaf Lutfi
al-Sayyid Marsot, Egypt's Liberal Experiment: 1922-1936
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); Robert
L. Tignor, Modernization and British Colonial Rule in
Egypt, 1882-1914 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1966); P. J. Vatikiotis, The History of Modern
Egypt: From Muhammad Ali to Mubarak, 4th cd. (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).

Muhammad al-Mahdi (868; disappeared
874 C.E.) the 12th and last Imam in Twelver Shiism,
considered by the majority ofShiis to be the Mahdi
Immediately upon becoming the 12th Imam al
the age of six, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan (as he
was originally known) was taken away and hid-
den by the Shia in an attempt to save him from
imprisonment at the hands of the Abassid caliph-
ate. Thus, for the first few years of his imamate,
Muhammad was represented in the community
by his agents who claimed to be in contact with
the young Imam and who spoke for him on mat-
ters of law and religion. This period from 874 to
941 became known as the Lesser Occultation, so
called to differentiate it from the Greater Occulta-
tion that occurred when, according to his agents,
Muhammad ibn al-Hasan left the earth, ceased
communication with his followers, and became
Muhammad al-Mahdi: the Hidden Imam who will
return at the end of time to restore justice on earth
and usher in the Judgment Day.

See also ghayba; Mahdi; Shiism; Twelve-Imam
Shiism.

Reza Aslan

Further reading: Jassim M. Hussain, Occultation of the
Twelfth Imam (London: The Muhammadi Trust, 1982);
Abdulaziz A. Sachedina, Islamic Messianism (New York:
State University of New York Press, 1981).

' Css5S 502 munafiqun

munafiqun See hypocrites.

murid

This is an aspirant or disciple associated with a
Sufi order, who has sworn allegiance to a Sufi
master (MURSHID or SHAYKH). This term, derived
from the Arabic root irada, or desire, is generally
used to describe those who participated in tariqas
(Sufi orders) from approximately the 12th to the
15th centuries throughout Islamdom. This period
is characterized by Sufism's organization into hier-
archical structures, with each Sufi master guid-
ing his murids along a certain method or path of
mystical knowledge, which he in turn had learned
from his master and the long silsila or chain of
mystical teachers before him. Murids typically
would undergo initiation ceremonies, in which
they would be presented with a cloak or a hat.
Expected to memorize the names of all previous
masters in the silsila of his tariqa , the murid also
prepared to learn its particular mystical teachings,
so that he in turn could transmit them to others
when he would become a master. The word murid
is still used today in a similar way, characterizing
the relationship of one who is under the guidance
of a Sufi master.

Many manuals were written expressing the
correct relationship between the master and his
disciple, which was one of complete surrender
reflecting divine hierarchy, and in particular the
Islamic emphasis on surrender to God. It was said
that the murid should be as passive as a corpse
being washed. Feminine imagery is found in
medieval Sufi literature as well, with advice that
this submission should be as a bride to a bride-
groom, and a description of the Sufi master as
nourishing his murid like a mother does a child.

Sophia Pandya

Further reading: Carl W. Ernst, Shambhala Guide to
Sufism (Boston: Shambhala, 1997); Margaret Malamud,
“Gender and Spiritual Self-Fashioning: The Master-
Disciple Relationship in Classical Sufism." Journal of

the American Academy of Religion 64 (1996): 89— 117; J.
Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971).

Muridi Sufi Order (Muridiyya)

A Sufi order established among the Wolof tribe
of Senegal in Touba around 1886 by the shaykh
Ahmadu Bamba (1850-1927). Originally an off-
shoot of the Qadiri Sufi Order, the order pro-
duced its own rituals and litanies and developed
a unique emphasis upon the value of hard work,
which would become a hallmark of the Muridi-
yya. Disciples were taught to obey their shaykhs,
renounce worldly pleasures, and devote them-
selves to productive occupations. Over time,
the Muridiyya became an economic force in the
region, particularly due to their cultivation and
sale of peanuts.

Muridiyya independence could be viewed as
resistance to the French colonial regime, a fact
that increased their attractiveness to the Wolof
and caused French administrators to view them
with suspicion. For this reason, colonial authori-
ties twice exiled Bamba from Senegal, hoping
to diminish his popularity. When this failed,
the French attempted to co-opt the Muridiyya,
finally establishing a modus vivendi with the
group in recognition of their stabilizing influence.
The Muridiyya attracted Wolof from all different
social strata, emphasizing the development of
a community that transcended normal societal
divisions. Bamba's religious knowledge, integrity,
and humble piety, when combined with his orga-
nizational abilities, helped him to create an order
that provided much-needed structure for a Sen-
egalese society disrupted by colonial domination.
Bamba eventually won the confidence of French
authorities by demonstrating a lack of interest in
temporal authority and by cooperating with them
in tangible ways.

Following the shaykhs death in 1927, the
Muridiyya continued this policy of cooperation
with political authorities, despite internal succes-

music 505

Drums on display at a shop in Marrakesh, Morocco (Federico R. Campo)

very musical anti follow traditional theoretical
models of music theory. In particular, the orna-
mental style ( tajwid ) of Quranic recitation is
especially melodic, elaborate, and vocally artis-
tic. The resulting combination of Quranic text
conveyed in beautiful voice can produce ecstatic
responses in listeners, and indeed, major muez-
zins often enjoy a huge fan base and even hold
starlike status.

Music in the world of Islam is as diverse as the
Muslim cultures that have given rise to it. Even
in the case of Afghanistan, where the Taliban
applied Islam to destroy music, a musical revival
is underway with the new Islamic government. At
present, we can find examples of Islamic musical
expression ranging from the very traditional to

rock and rap. In the future we can expect a musi-
cal panorama increasingly reflective of the various
areas of the world where Muslims have made their
homes.

See also qawwali; Umm Kulthoum.

Kenneth S. Habib

Further reading: Henry George Farmer, The Science of
Music in Islam, 2 vols. (1925-66. Reprint, Frankfurt:
Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science,
1997); Kristina Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur'an
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985); Amnon
Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam (Detroit: Wayne
State University Press, 1995); Lawrence E. Sullivan, ed.
Enchanting Powers: Music in the World's Religions (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1997).

506 Muslim

Muslim See Islam.

Muslim Brotherhood (Arabic: al-lkhwan
al-Muslimun; also known as the Society of
Muslim Brothers)

The first modern city-based Islamist movement
with mass appeal in the Arab world was the
Muslim Brotherhood. Founded in 1928 by Hasan
al-Banna (1909-49), an Egyptian school teacher,
in the Suez Canal Zone city of Ismailiya, it subse-
quently created hundreds of branches and spin-off
organizations throughout Egypt, and subsequently
in Libya, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Yemen,
and Kuwait. It developed close contacts with
Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia that continue to the
present day. Splinter groups have arisen elsewhere
in the region, and it served as the basis, directly or
indirectly, from which a number of more radical
Islamic movements have arisen. Today the Muslim
Brotherhood is an especially influential rcligiopo-
litical force in Egypt, the Sudan, and Jordan.

Egypt was a protectorate of Great Britain
when al-Banna established the Muslim Brother-
hood. At the time there was a limited degree of
Egyptian self-rule under a monarchy and national
legislature, but the people desired complete inde-
pendence from foreign occupation and a more
democratic government. Al-Banna appealed to this
widespread anticolonial sentiment and combined
it with a call for moral renewal in accordance with
an idealized Islam of the Quran and the salaf, the
esteemed first generations of Muslims. He had
been inspired by the teachings of Jamal al-Din al-
Afghani (d. 1897), Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905),
and Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935), leaders in
the modern Islamic reform movement that was
sweeping many Muslim countries. Al-Banna was
particularly troubled by the growing influence
European secular values were having on Egypt's
Muslim youth and the inability of the tradition-
alist ulama to counteract this influence. He saw
this development as more of a threat than British
military occupation of his country. In the 1930s

another issue in which he developed great interest
was the fate of Palestine under British rule and the
success of the Zionist movement. Al-Banna gave
speeches about these matters in coffeehouses in
Cairo and Ismailiya that attracted large audiences,
from among whom he recruited the first members
of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition to educating people about Islam,
the Brotherhood engaged in political activity and
provided social services to the needy. Reflecting
the diverse sources from which he formed his
vision of the Brotherhood's mission, al-Banna
declared his new organization to be “a Salafiyya
message, a Sunni way, a Sufi truth, a political orga-
nization, an athletic group, a cultural-educational
union, an economic company, and a social idea”
(quoted in Voll, 362). He strove to keep the Broth-
erhood from being associated with ulama and
secular Egyptian political parties. At the time of
al-Banna's assassination in 1949, its membership
is estimated to have reached 500,000 active mem-
bers, not to mention many more sympathizers and
supporters. After the Free Officers secured Egypt's
independence in 1953, membership dropped sig-
nificantly, and the organization soon came into
conflict with the new Arab nationalist government
of Jamal Abd al-Nasir (r. 1953-70).

The Brotherhood's success in winning popular
support was in large part due to its leadership
and its ability to promote its message of Islamic
renewal through a tightly knit organizational
structure. It was like a mini-state, headed by a
General Guide (m urshid). Guidance Council,
and Consultative Assembly. This governing body
worked through a network of units charged with
technical operations and coordination of activi-
ties at the local level. The operational units were
concerned with teaching and outreach (daavva)
to students, professionals, labor, peasants, and
the wider l/MMA, or Muslim community. It also
had committees charged with financial oversight,
provision of legal and social services, issuance of
legal opinions (sing, fatwa), and policymaking. A
section for women, known as the Muslim Sisters,

Muslim Brotherhood 507

was established in the 1940s, although this was
not as successful as the Brotherhood in recruiting
members. An independent Syrian branch of the
Brotherhood was created in the 1930s by Mustafa
al-Sibai (1915-64), a Syrian who had studied
in Egypt and met al-Banna. Egyptian members
had visited Palestine and Transjordan during
the 1930s, but the first independent Jordanian
branch did not officially open until 1946, headed
by Abd al-Latif Qurah (d. 1953), a Jordanian.
In 1948 the Brotherhood recruited volunteers
to fight in Palestine against the Israelis, reflect-
ing their concern for pan-Arab causes. Sudanese
who had studied in Cairo established the first
branches in the Sudan in the late 1940s, but the
official headquarters of the Sudanese Muslim
Brotherhood did not open until 1954. Perhaps the
most prominent leader to arise from this branch
was Hasan al-Turabi (b. 1932), who had joined
the Brotherhood as a student and rose to promi-
nence in the organization in the 1960s and 1970s.
He became the chief ideologist of the Sudanese
National Islamic Front, the Brotherhoods politi-
cal party, in the 1980s.

From the beginning, the Brotherhood made
effective use of the print media to spread its mes-
sage. In Egypt it launched several periodicals in
the 1930s, then took over al-Manar (Lighthouse),
the Islamic reformist magazine, when its chief
editor Rashid Rida died in 1935. In 1942 it began
publishing a weekly magazine called al-Ikhwan
al-Muslimin, which was replaced by a daily news-
paper of the same name in 1946. This publica-
tion was shut down when the Brotherhood was
banned by the government in 1948. From 1951
to 1956 it published al-Daawa magazine, which
was also banned, but allowed to resume in 1976,
until banned again by the government in 1981.
Since the 1980s the Brotherhood has published a
weekly periodical known as Liwa al-lslam (Banner
of Islam), and it has also been able to disseminate
its ideology through numerous books and other
oppositional newspapers, even when its official
publications have been banned.

In a development that proved to be a significant
one with respect to its status in the eyes of Egyp-
tian authorities, the Brotherhood formed a jihad
unit (known as the “secret apparatus") designed
to defend the organization against police crack-
downs and to attack the British during World War
11. After the war it conducted a campaign of terror
that included attacks on the British, government
officials, popular cinemas, and Egyptian Jews. This
cycle of violence culminated with the assassina-
tion of Egypt's prime minister, al-Nuqrashi Pasha,
in 1948, followed by the governments retaliatory
assassination of al-Banna in 1949. The jihad unit
was also implicated in an attempt on the life of
President Nasir in 1954, which resulted in wide-
spread arrests and executions of key members of
the Brotherhood. One of those imprisoned at this
time was Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), a former literary
critic and recent Muslim Brotherhood convert,
whose experience and torture in prison shaped his
vision of a united Islamic struggle against modern
idolatry and corruption. Two of the major works
he wrote at this time were a multivolume Quran
commentary and Maalim fi'l-iariq (Milestones). He
became the foremost ideologist of the Brotherhood
after al-Banna s death, and his ideas have inspired
numerous new radical Islamist movements since
the 1970s in many Muslim countries.

A great resurgence of Islamism swept through
Middle Eastern lands when many of the newly
independent national regimes were unable to
meet the expectations of their people and turned
to secular authoritarianism to stay in power.
Democratic impulses that had emerged earlier in
the 20th century were stifled. The defeat of Arab
armies in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in particular
served as a catalyst for the popular turn to religion.
Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat (r. 1970-81),
Nasir's successor, took advantage of this religious
turn to consolidate his power against Nasirite
loyalists and leftists, releasing members of the
Brotherhood from prison and allowing Islamic
student groups to become active on university
campuses. Although the leadership of the Muslim

i£ ^ 508 Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Abu al-Husayn

Brotherhood now favored implementing Islamic
law through peaceful participation in the politi-
cal process, more radical Islamist groups arose,
incited by the ideology of Qutb and the success
of Ayatollah Khomeinis Islamic revolution in Iran
(1978-79). One of these radical organizations,
the Jihad Group, assassinated al-Sadat in October
1981, because of their anger at his increasingly
oppressive rule and the peace agreement he had
signed with Israel. In Syria, meanwhile, the
Muslim Brotherhood had become the most seri-
ous domestic threat to the government of Hafiz
al-Asad and the ruling Baath Party. In 1982 it led
a popular uprising in the city of Hama, which was
quelled violently by Syrian troops, resulting in the
loss of thousands of lives. It has never recovered
from this blow. Syrian and Egyptian members or
former members of the Muslim Brotherhood car-
ried its ideology to Saudi Arabia, where it became
combined with Wahhabism. This fusion of radical
Islamic jihadist ideas influenced Usama bin Ladin
(b. 1957) and others, who used them to recruit
followers to fight against the Soviets in Afghani-
stan, as well as other Arab governments, and to
conduct terrorist attacks against U.S. and Euro-
pean interests. In Palestine, former members of
the Muslim Brotherhood created Hamas in 1987.
This was an Islamist organization opposed to
Yasir Arafat’s secular Palestine Liberation Orga-
nization. Moreover, Hamas sought to engage in a
jihad to bring the illegal Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian homeland. At the same time, however,
the nonviolent tactics of the mainline branches of
the Muslim Brotherhood have allowed it to suc-
cessfully compete in legislative elections in both
Egypt and Jordan, despite having to face periodic
restrictions and government crackdowns.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; colonialism;
Ghazali, Zaynab al-; jihad movements; renewal

AND REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Further reading: Nazih N. Ayubi, Political Islam: Reli-
gion and Politics in the Arab World (London: Routledge,
1991); Gilles Kcpel. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The

Prophet and the Pharaoh. Translated by Jon Rothschild
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Richard
P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1993 (19691); John O. Voll,
“Fundamentalism in the Sunni Arab World: Egypt and
the Sudan." In Fundamentalisms Observed , edited by
Martin Marty and R. Scott Appleby, 345-402 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1991).

Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Abu al-Husayn See

HADITH.

Muslim League See All-India Muslim League.

Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)

Founded as the Political Action Committee of
Southern California in 1986, the Muslim Public
Affairs Council assumed its present name in
1988. It is an American Muslim advocacy orga-
nization that works with city, state, and national
officials to promote issues involving the civil
and human rights of Muslims and other minori-
ties in the United States. Its early leadership
developed from members of the Islamic Society
of Southern California, one of the first mosques
established in Los Angeles, California. This cen-
ter has played an active role in the public sphere
and interfaith dialogue since the 1980s. One of
MPACs founding members was Maher Hathout,
an Egyptian physician who has become a lead-
ing spokesman for Muslims in the United Slates
since he arrived in 1971. He is currently the
senior adviser to the MPAC board of directors.
MPACs executive director since about 1990 has
been Salam al-Maryati (b. 1960), who was born
in Baghdad, Iraq, and came to the United States
with his family in 1964. He holds a bachelor's
degree in biochemistry from the University of
California at Los Angeles and a master's degree
in business administration from the University
of California at Irvine. His wife, Laila al-Mary-

510 Muslim Students Association

Women members of the Muslim Students Association
at a campus Ramadan iftar meal (Juan E. Campo)

the MSA Persian-Speaking Group (MSAPSG),
which appeals to Shii students with ties to Iran.

MSA chapters are encouraged to join the
MSA national network, which is divided into
U.S. and Canadian chapters. These chapters are
subdivided into geographical regions: eastern,
central, and western regions for the United
Slates; eastern and western ones for Canada.
Each region holds its own “national" conference,
in coordination with MSA national. The MSA
national organization is governed by a general
secretariat, with its headquarters in Plainfield,
Indiana. Women hold visible leadership roles
at both the chapter and the general secretariat
levels. In 2007 MSA adopted a logo that shows
two nested crescent moons, together with sym-
bols and colors of the U.S. and Canadian flags.
The word salam is written in Arabic inside the
logo, which MSA interprets as referring both to
“peace" and the customary expression of greet-
ing exchanged by Muslims: al-salamu alaykum
"peace be upon you.”

Until the 1990s the MSA looked for inspira-
tion to the Islamist reformism embodied in the
writings of Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) and Abu al-Ala
Mawdudi (d. 1979), which are now seen as too
radical by most members. Today, in promoting

the ideals of religious identity and unity among
Muslim college students, the MSA affirms a list
of values that helps define its place in American
society and contributes to combating anti-Mus-
lim prejudice in North America, especially since
the September 11, 2001, attacks at the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon. These values
include sincerity, knowledge, patience, truthful-
ness, moderation, tolerance, and forgiveness.
The secretariat and the campus chapters hold
conferences and meetings to help realize these
values. One of the major activities they undertake
is organizing an Islam Awareness Day or Week,
which features films, guest speakers, and exhib-
its to educate non-Muslims about Islam. During
Ramadan MSA chapters sponsor "fastathons” to
raise funds for charities and evening interfaith
iftar meals, which mark the end of the daily fast.
Many participate in interfaith events throughout
the year that foster mutual understanding and
acceptance in the campus community as a whole,
especially among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
students. The MSA also engages in outreach
through the Internet.

An indication of the remarkable success
that MSA has experienced since it was founded
are the nonstudent Islamic organizations it has
inspired. These include the Islamic Society of
North America (1SNA), created in 1981, with
which it still maintains an affiliation. Professional
organizations have also been established by for-
mer MSA members, such as the Islamic Medical
Association of North America (IMANA), the
Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS),
and the Association of Muslim Scientists and
Engineers (AMSE).

See also Council on American-Islamic
Relations; daawa; dialogue; Islamism; Muslim
Public Affairs Council; renewal and reform
movements.

Further reading: Geneive Abdo. Mecca on Main Street:
Muslim Life in American after 9/11 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007); Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Com-

Mutazili School 511

peting Visions of Islam in the United States: A Study of
Los Angeles (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1997);
Jane Smith. Islam in America (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1999).

Muslim World League (Arabic: Rabitat
al-Alam al-lslami)

The Muslim World League is a pan-Islamic orga-
nization founded in 1962 to promote the unity
ol the UMMA (the universal Muslim community).
Although it describes itself as a “cultural orga-
nization” for Muslims, it was created by a group
of Muslim political leaders, intellectuals, and
experts opposed at the time to the widespread
influence of secular Arab nationalism and the
spread of communism and socialism in Muslim
lands during the cold war period after World War
11. Saudi king Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz (r. 1964-75)
was instrumental in its formation, it receives a
substantial amount of its funding from Saudi Ara-
bia, and its headquarters is in Mecca. Its govern-
ing council, which must be led by a Saudi citizen,
is composed of Sunni religious authorities reflect-
ing strong Wahhabi and Islamist outlooks, such
as those espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood
and Abu al-Ala MawdudPs Jamaat-i Islami. There
are no Shii Muslims or liberal Muslims in the
organization. In contrast to the Organization of
the Islamic Conference, which was founded in
1969 as a body of Muslim nation-states, the Mus-
lim World League has been primarily concerned
with promoting the implementation of the SHARIA
and conducting daaxva (religious outreach) activi-
ties. It hosts meetings during the annual HAJJ
and, to meet its objectives, it has created a Fiqh
Council, a World Supreme Council for Mosques,
councils for relief and charitable activities, as well
as for religious education and memorization of
the Quran. The leagues chief publication is the
Muslim World League Journal , which is issued in
English.

See also Pan-Islamism; Wahhabism; World
Muslim Congress.

Further reading: Mozammel Haque, “The Role of
Rabitat al-Alam al-lslami in the Promotion of Islamic
Education," Islamic Quarterly 6, no. 1 (1992): 58-63;
Jacob Landau, The Politics of Pan-Islam: Ideology and
Organization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

mutaa Sec Twelve-Imam Shiism.

Mutazili School

The first truly doctrinal school of THEOLOGY
( kalam ) in Islam, the Mutazili School flourished
from the eighth to the 11th centuries. Its com-
parative rationalist orientation influenced dis-
cussions within classical Islamic philosophy, and
made decisive contributions to the development
and intellectual sophistication of i/m al-halam
(science of theology). In fact, the rationalist
approach and doctrines of Mutazili theology
impacted a variety of Islamic sciences. In our
own time, historical and theoretical treatments
of Mutazili theology have affected the tenor and
tone of modernist and postmodernist Muslim
discourse in general and Islamic liberalism in
particular: from the Indonesian scholar Harun
Nasution to such diverse figures as the late
Fazlur Rahman, Muhammed Arkoun, Fatima
Mernissi, and Hassan Hanafi.

The schools name is derived from an Arabic
verb meaning “to withdraw, stand aside” ( itazala ),
here in the sense of “those who separate them-
selves.” The following traditional account elabo-
rates: Al-Hasan al-Basri (642-728), an ascetic
Sufi who belonged to the generation of pious
Muslims ( tabiun ) after the Companions of the
Prophet Muhammad, argued that humans have
been accorded free will and thus possess moral
and spiritual responsibility for their behavior.
This viewpoint, propagated by the Qadariyya,
opponents of the Umayyad Caliphate, allowed
them to hold the caliph accountable for his
acts. Technically, qadar meant “divine decree” or
“predestination," but for the Qadariyya and the

514 mysticism

Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Josef van
Ess, The Flowering of Muslim Theology (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006); Oliver Leaman, An
Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002); Richard C. Martin
and Mark R. Woodward (with Dwi S. Atmaja), Defend-

ers of Reason: Mu’tazilism from Medieval School to Mod-
ern Symbol (Oxford: Oneworld, 1997); Harry Austryn
Wolfson, The Philosophy of Kalam (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1976).

mysticism See asceticism; Sufism; tariqa.

nabi Sec prophets and prophethood.
nafs See soul and spirit.
namaz See prayer.

names of God (Arabic: a I asma al-husna,
the most beautiful names)

Muslims believe in one God, but know him by
99 “most beautiful” names that attest to differ-
ent divine qualities. The Quran states, “The most
beautiful names belong to God (Allah) so call on
him by them; but shun such men as use profan-
ity in his names: for what they do, they will soon
be requited” (Q 7:180). Moreover, a HADITH from
Abu Hurayra (d. 678), the close companion of the
Prophet, asserts, “God has 99 names, one hundred
minus 1, and whoever memorizes them will enter
paradise." The first verse of the Quran, known
as the BASMALA, states three of these names: “In
the name of God (Allah), the most compassion-
ate (al-Rahman), the most merciful (al-Rahim)."
This verse begins all but one of the Quran's chap-
ters. Other names attest to the divine qualities of
omnipotence ( al-Qadir ), omniscience ( al-Alim ),

gentleness ( al-Latif ), righteousness ( al-Barr ),
and kindness (al-Rauf). Muslims have speculated
about God's hundredth name, which some believe
is hidden and that only God knows it.

The 99 names come from three sources: (1)
directly from the Quran (as in the basmala and Q
59:22-24); (2) names derived indirectly from the
Quran (for example, al-Basit Expander (of hearts],
Q 2:245); and (3) traditional names of God that
are not found in the Quran in any form (for
example, al-Adl The Just). Muslim theologians
have divided the 99 names into two groupings.
One involves differentiating between the Names
of the Essence (such as God's own name, Allah,
which is the supreme name, and al-Rahman) from
the Names of the Qualities (such as al-Barr).

All of God's names are incorporated into the
lives of Muslims in a wide variety of ways. They
appear as first and/or last names of persons pre-
ceded by the word Abel (Servant of . . .), such
as Abd Allah (Servant of God), Abd al-Salam
(Servant of Peace), or Abd al-Jabbar (Servant of
the Powerful). Gods names are recited in the
required daily prayers, during meditations involv-
ing prayer beads, and Sufi dhikr rituals. They are
printed on posters for display in mosques, homes,
and businesses. One of the most popular religious
songs in modern times is “Asma Allah al-husna”

515

*-* 516

Al-Rahman

Most

Compassionate

Al-Rahim

The Merciful

Al-Malik

The King

Al-Quddus

The Most Holy

jlixll

Al-Ghaffar

The Forgiver

Al-Qahhar

The Subduer

Al-Wahhab

The Bestower

Al-Razzaq

The Provider

Al-Fattah

The Opener.
The Judge

Al-Basir

The All Seeing

Al-Hakam

The Judge

JjjOI

Al-Adl

The Just

■ a-UlU

••

Al-Latif

The Gentle

Al-Khabir

The A[[ Aware

The Compeller

Al-Mutakabbir

The Majestic

Al-Khaliq

The Creator

Al-Bari

The Maker

The Abaser

Al-Rafi

The Exalter

Al-Muizz

The Bestower
of Honor

JJuji

Al-Mudhill

The Humiliator

The

Appreciative

Al-Aliyy

The Most High

Al-Kabir

The Most Great

Al-Hafiz

The Preserver

Al-Muqit

The Sustainer

Al-Hasib

The Reckoner

Al-Jalil

The Majestic

Al-Karim

The Generous

3^'

i3'

Al-Haqq

Al-Hayy

Al-Zahir

The Truth

The Ever-Living

The Manifest

jiO 11

Al-Wakil

Al-Qayyum

Al-Batin

Al-Jami
The Gatherer

The Disposer
of Affairs

ii

rhe Self-Existing by
Whom all Subsist

The Hidden

Al-Ghani

The

All-Sufficient

Al-Qawi

The

Most Strong

Al-Raqib

The Watchful

Al-Mujib

The Responsive

Al-Matin

The Firm One

Al-Wali

The Protector

Al-Mumin

The Granter
of Security

Al-Alim

The

All-Knowing

Al-Halim

The Forbearing

Al-Muhaymin

The Protector

Al-Qabid

The Withholder

Al-Azim

The Incomparingly
Great

ui

•

Al-Aziz

Al-Basit

Al-Ghafur

The Mighty

The Expander

The Forgiving

Al-Jabbar

Al-Khafid

Al-Shakur

Remember Me and I
will remember you
(Quran 2:152)

*011

ALLAH

The Most Beautiful Names
belong to Allah; invoke Him
by them
(Quran 7:180)

Al-Wasi

The

All-Embra cing

Al-Hakim

The Wise

Al-Wadud

The Loving One

•

Al-Majid

The

Most Glorious

Al-Ba’ith

The Resurrector

Al-Shahid

The Witness

Al-Hamid

The

Praiseworthy

Al-Wajid

The

Self-Sufficient

Al-Majid

The Glorified

Al-Wahid

The One

Al-Ahad

The One
and Only

1

Al-Samad

The Eternal

jJGji

Al-Qadir

The

Omnipotent

Al-Wali

The Protector

Al-Mughni

The Enricher

*3UJI

Al-Mutaali

The

Most Exalted

Al-Barr

The Benign

j2 \

Al-Tawwab

The Granter and
Accepter of
repentance

Al-Muhsi

The Reckoner

Al-Mubdi

The Originator

••

Al-Muid

The Restorer
to Life

Al-Muqtadir

The Powerful

Al-Muqaddim

The Expediter

Al-Muntaqim

The Avenger

Al-Afuww

The Pardoner

Al-Rauf

The Most Kind

sH UJ! ^ILU

Malik-al-Mulk

Owner of

Al-Mani

The Preventer
of Harm

jU^'

Al-Darr

The Afflicter

^9U3I

Al-Nafi

The Benefiter

Al-Nur

The Light

Al-Hadi

The Guide

Al-Badi

The Originator

Jui

Al-Baqi

Al-Muhyi

The Giver
of Life

Al-Mumit

The Causer
of Death

Al-Muakhkhir

The Delayer

Al-Awwal

The First

>3!

Al-Akhir

The Last

the Kingdom

The Everlasting

Al-Warith

The Ultimate
Inheritor

Dhu-al-Jalali

wa-al-lkram

Possesor of
Majesty and
Honor

Al-Rashid

The Guide

Al-Muqsit

The Just

Al-Sabur

The

Patient One

The 99 names of God

Naqshbandi Sufi Order 517

(“God’s most beautiful names '), composed by the
Egyptian musician Sayyid Makkawi (1924-1997).
Recitations of God's names have also been posted
as audio files on the Internet.

See also prayer; theology.

Jon Armajani

Further reading: Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muham-
mad al-Tusi al-Ghazali, The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Nantes
of God. Translated by David B. Burrell and Nazih Daher.
(Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1995); Mujtaba
Musavi Lari and Hamid Algar, God and His Attributes
(Qom, Iran: Foundation of Islamic C.P.W., 2000);
Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Quran (Minneapo-
lis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1994); Muhammad ibn Abd
al-Wahhab, Kitah al Tawhid: Essay on the Unicity of Allah
or What Is Due to Allah from His Creatures. Translated by
Ismail al-Faruqi. (Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates: Zaycd
Welfare Centre for the New Muslims, 1990).

Naqshbandi Sufi Order

The Naqshbandiyya Sufis constitute one of the
worlds most prominent Sufi orders and are known
best for their active engagement in worldly affairs
and their rejection of outward signs of religious
devotion. The order is named after a 14th-century
mystic and Sufi SHAYKH named Baha al-Din al-
Naqshbandi, born in 1317 in the village of Qasr
al-Arifan near Bukhara in Central Asia. As an
infant he was taken under the tutelage of a promi-
nent Sufi master. In his youth he experienced
visionary revelations and before the age of 20 was
recognized as a brilliant Islamic scholar. He is
said to have received training through the spirit —
ruhaniyat — of earlier masters of the lineage, and
by the mysterious Khidir, a special agent of God
known to Islamic tradition. Baha al-Din died in
1389 and was buried in his birthplace.

Through the endowments of successive rulers
of Bukhara, a khanqah (Sufi hospice), madrasa,
and mosque were added to his tomb site, quickly
making the area a major learning and pilgrimage
center. By the end of the 15th century the Naqsh-

bandis had become the dominant Sufi order in
Central Asia, creating a strand of religious and
cultural continuity and political influence across
the geographically and culturally disparate Sunni
strongholds of the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia,
and India.

The Naqshbandi Sufis consider themselves
guardians of the practices of Muhammad and
his Companions, and trace their lineage back to
Abu Bakr (d. 634), the first caliph. This, they
claim, informs their highly distinctive practice
of silent — as opposed to vocal — DHIKR (repeated
invocation in the name of Allah), a practice they
believe was first given to Abu Bakr by God.

Another distinctive characteristic of the
Naqshbandi order, made definitive in the 15th
century by Kwaja Nasiruddin Ubayd Allah Ahrar,
is the primacy given to the establishment of sharia
in Muslim societies. With Ahrar, Naqshbandi
engagement with political establishments became
characterized by the shaykhs* involvement with
political rulers in concerns of both spiritual and
mundane importance in order to cause these lead-
ers to establish and enforce the sharia laws.

One of the great Naqshbandi innovators,
Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624), contrib-
uted substantially to the diffusion of the order
by establishing the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya
lineage in India. Another major leader of the
Naqshbandis was Khalid Shahrazuri, a 19th-cen-
tury Kurd from present-day northern Iraq, who
initiated a new lineage, the Khalidis. The Khalidi
branch was influential in the 19th-century Otto-
man Empire, and it continues to be so in contem-
porary Turkey.

The Naqshbandis of Central Asia were actively
involved in resisting Russian colonization in the
19th century. Since the 1990s many communities
in the former republics of Soviet Central Asia have
been seeking to reconstruct their religious tradi-
tions, which involves recovering Naqshbandi tra-
ditions and histories. In Uzbekistan, for example,
a recent resurgence of interest in Sufi heritage
has involved an efflorescence of hagiographic

518 Nasser, Gamal Abdel

materials that figure prominently in a reconstruc-
tion of the history of Naqshbandis in the region.
Today branches of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order
exist in Turkey, Bosnia, Syria, Pakistan, India,
Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, China, Britain, and
the Americas.

See also Haqqani, Muhammad Nazim al-;
renewal and reform movements; Shamil; Sufism.

Megan Adamson Sijapati

Further reading: Arthur F Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the
Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the
Mediating Sufi Shaykh (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1998); Elisabeth Ozdalga, cd., Naqsh-
bandis in Western and Central Asia: Change and Continu-
ity (Istanbul: Curzon Press, 1999); Vernon Schubel,
“Post-Soviet Hagiography and the Reconstruction of the
Naqshbandi Tradition in Contemporary Uzbekistan."
In Naqshbandis in Western and Central Asia: Change and
Continuity, edited by Elisabeth Ozdalga, 73-87 (Istan-
bul: Curzon Press, 1999).

Nasser, Gamal Abdel See Nasir, Jamal Abd al-

Nasir, Jamal Abd al- (Gamal Abdel
Nasser) (1918-1970) charismatic president of
Egypt from 1954 to 1970

Jamal Abd al-Nasir was born on January 15, 1918.
The son of a lowcr-middle-class postal official,
Abd al-Nasir served with distinction in the 1948
Arab-Israeli war. As a lieutenant colonel in the
Egyptian army, he was the leader of the Free Offi-
cers, a group of mainly young officers in the mili-
tary from the lower or lower middle classes. The
Free Officers successfully overthrew King Farouk
on July 23, 1952, and established the Revolution-
ary Command Council, which became the ruling
political group of Egypt. Abd al-Nasir was elected
president in 1956.

Abd al-Nasir was a strong nationalist, and his
secular policies quickly alienated him from the

Muslim Brotherhood. In 1954, after an assassina-
tion attempt, Abd al-Nasir promptly purged the
organization, imprisoning its members and hang-
ing its leaders. While successful in the short run
in disabling the Muslim Brotherhood as an effec-
tive organization, the purges contributed to the
growth and development of Islamist movements
in Egypt and throughout the world — Islamists
such as SAYYID Qutb (d. 1966), who even today
remains influential, were able to write and lay the
ideological groundwork for radical Islamism. Abd
al-Nasir, however, remained immensely popular,
especially among lower- and middle-class urban
workers and rural dwellers in Egypt and in the
wider Arab world.

Abd al-Nasir accomplished a major achieve-
ment in reforming the EDUCATION system by mak-
ing it free for all Egyptians. This would eventually
backfire, however, as universities later became a
hotbed for breeding Islamic opposition. Abd al-
Nasir's economic policies carried a socialist bent
to them, and another one of his achievements
was reforming land laws, limiting the size of land
holdings for large landowners and redistribut-
ing acreage to the lower classes; however, while
certain of his economic policies were popular
with many Egyptians, his regime became increas-
ingly autocratic as time passed. Ruling during the
height of the cold war, Abd al-Nasir leaned toward
the Soviet Union, which provided financial sup-
port for the construction of the Aswan Dam in
1964. One of his most visible legacies, the Aswan
Dam introduced electricity to much of rural Egypt
but also created major environmental problems.

In 1956 Abd al-Nasir received wide acclaim in
Egypt and throughout the Arab world for seizing
the Suez Canal from Britain, and his popularity
quickly swelled as a symbol of pan-Arab national-
ism. As Abd al-Nasirs status across the Arab world
increased, he sought to capitalize on his notoriety
by pursuing a foreign policy increasingly interna-
tional in scope. In 1958 Egypt and Syria agreed
to form the United Arab Republic (UAR), theo-
retically merging the two countries into a single,

520 Nation of Islam

in China was to unify knowledge as a sacred quest
for the truth. Finally the worlds great religions as
reflected in holy books, such as the Hindu Vedas,
the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, and the Daodejing
( Tao te Ching ), all illuminate a path to divinity
through a spiritual philosophy, seeking to unify
humans, nature, and God.

Nasr was the youngest philosopher ever hon-
ored by the Library of Living Philosophers and
the first Muslim. He has exerted considerable
influence in efforts to revive Islamic philosophy
in Europe and the Americas with his discussion of
philosophers after Ibn Rushd. He has profoundly
influenced scholars worldwide who are seeking to
reunderstand Islamic philosophy and the sacred
nature of knowledge.

See also creation; secularism; theology.

Judy Saltzman

Further reading: Lewis Hahn. Randall Auxicr, and
Lucien W. Stone, Jr., eds.. The Philosophy of Seyyed
1 1 ossein Nasr (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2001);
Seyyed Hosscin Nasr. Islamic Philosophy from Its Ori-
gins to the Present (Albany: State University of New

York Press, 2006); , Science ami Civilization in

Islam (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,

1970); . Philosophy and the Plight of Modern Man

(London: Longmans, 1976); . Knowledge and

the Sacred (Albany: State University of New York Press,

1989); , Religion and the Order of Nature (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1996).

Nation of Islam

This indigenous African-American Muslim com-
munity of the Nation of Islam (NOI) began in
1930, when racism and violence against blacks
were still widespread in the United States.
Although the shadowy figure of W. D. Fard (also
known as Fard Muhammad, Wallace D. Fard, Wali
Fard Muhammad, et al.) was the original impetus
of the community's distinctive black theology
and eschatological message, its true founder and
leader for many decades until his death was Elijah

Muhammad, born Elijah Poole (1897-1975), in
Sandersville, Georgia. In 1923 he married Clara
Evans, who later came to be known in the NOI
as Sister Clara Muhammad, and settled in Detroit,
where, in the early 1930s, he became acquainted
with W. D. Fard and his already established Tem-
ple of Islam. By 1934 Fard had disappeared and
Elijah Muhammad became the sole leader of the
new community known as the Nation of Islam.

Combining use of the Bible and later the
Quran, Elijah Muhammad preached a message of
modern black prophecy that emphasized themes
of the chosenness and salvific destiny of the
“Blackman," doing his own revisionist history on
racist American attitudes toward the “Negro" or
“colored man" since the Civil War (1861-65). Pos-
sible Islamic sources for these teachings have been
found by scholars of Sufism and Islamic sectarian
theologies (Shiism, Ahmadiyya, and even Druze
teachings), all of which espouse varying notions
of the divinity within, cyclic prophecy, ongoing
revelation, messianism in the Islamic figure of
the Mahdi, and millennialism in the imminent
coming of the Last Judgment and rcvcrsal/over-
throw of the present corrupt world order. Several
of these ideas exist on the margins of Islamic
sectarianism and arc strongly disavowed by the
Sunni Muslim majority, particularly notions of
modern prophecy, ongoing revelation, and human
(in this case, black) divinity. These doctrines have
made the NOI universally rejected by the Ameri-
can Sunni community since its origins, although
there are more recent signs of a rapprochement
with the larger world Muslim umma, or religious
community.

The NOI has frequently been categorized in
purely secular political or sociological terms as
black nationalism and not as a religious commu-
nity. This community certainly has played a large
role in paralleling, stimulating, and critiquing var-
ious civil rights and sociopolitical activism move-
ments in America: the National Association for the
Advancement of the Colored People (NAACP),
Marcus Garveys Universal Negro Improvement

^ 524 Navruz

As a final note, the NOI and other parallel
groups have often been labeled collectively ’’Black
Muslims." These include such related communi-
ties as the Moorish Science Temple (begun before
the NOI in 1913 in Newark, New Jersey, by Noble
Drew Ali, born Timothy Drew), the Five Percent
Nation of Gods and Earths, or Five Percenters (an
offshoot of the NOI started in 1964 by ex-NOl
member Clarence ’ Pudding" 13X, born Clarence
Jowars Smith, killed in 1969), and the Ansaaru
Allah Community (an apocalyptic and theologi-
cally eclectic community founded by Isa Muham-
mad, aka Malachi Z. York, born Dwight York ca.
1935). The term Black Muslim was coined by an
early scholar on the NOI, C. Eric Lincoln in 1961
and came to be commonly associated with various
sectarian African-American Muslim communities,
but particularly the Nation of Islam. This usage
was intended to distinguish the Nation of Islam
from the immigrant, expatriate, and white convert
population of the American Sunni majority who
have tended to claim "Moslem" or "Muslim" for
themselves.

See also African Americans, Islam among;
Sunnism.

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Further reading: Claude Andrew Clegg, III, An Original
Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1998); Robert Dannin, “Islands
in a Sea of Ignorance." In Black Pilgrimage to Islam
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); E. U.
Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism: A Search for Identity
in America (New York: Dell Publishing, 1962); Matthias
Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farra-
khan and the Nation of Islam (Durham, N.C.: Duke Uni-
versity Press, 1996); C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims
In America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1961); Malcolm X
and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965.
Reprint, New York: Ballantine Books, 1992); Aminah
Beverly McCloud. African American Islam (New York:
Routledge, 1995); Kathleen M. Moore, Al-Mughtaribun:
American Law and the Transformation of Muslim Life in
the United States (Albany: State University of New York

Press, 1995); Elijah Muhammad, Message to the Black-
man in America (1965. Reprint, Newport News, Va.:
United Brothers Communications Systems, 1992); Son-
sryea Tate, Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005); Rich-
ard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experi-
ence (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).

Navruz (Persian: new day; Nawruz,
Nowruz, Nevruz)

Navruz is the ancient Persian New Year's holiday,
traditionally celebrated in Iran and neighboring
countries from Turkey to Uzbekistan at the time
of the spring equinox (around March 21). Origi-
nally, it was an ancient Zoroastrian festival that
was adopted by the Persian kings before Islam's
appearance in the seventh century c.E. It was
celebrated widely in Middle Eastern cultures as a
public holiday. It is now celebrated over a period
of 12 to 14 days in late March by people who have
grown up in Persianate cultures and households,
regardless of religious affiliation. This includes the
majority of Sunni and Shii Muslims, Christians,
and Jews living in Iran, or in communities influ-
enced by the Persian cultural heritage.

Navruz is a time for family visits and exchang-
ing gifts. The home has become one of the main
centers for celebrating it. After people do a
thorough housecleaning, they set up the haft-sin
(seven food items beginning with the letter “s")
with a mirror and candles on a table in a common
area where visitors can see it. An older custom is
to place these items on a carpet or cloth that has
been spread on the ground. Seven is considered a
lucky number and the food items placed on the
table arc said to be auspicious for the coming year,
representing good health, happiness, prosperity,
fertility, and long life. There is some variation
among the symbolic items displayed, but they
often include sabzi (green sprouts), sib (apples),
samatm (a sweet, creamy pudding), sir (fresh gar-
lic), sumaq (a sour berry used in Persian cuisine),
sirkeh (vinegar), and sinjid (oleaster, or jubjube

Navruz 525

fruits). It is also common to put a hook of wis-
dom on the haft-sin table. It might be the Quran,
the Bible, the Zoroastrian Avesta , the Persian epic
poem Shahnama , or a collection of poetry by
Hafiz (d. ca. 1380). Fortunes are often divined at
this time by reading randomly selected passages
Irom one of these books. Other auspicious objects
placed on the table may include flowers, coins,
nuts and sweets, a basket of painted eggs, and a
goldfish in a bowl. In Afghanistan a dish consist-
ing of seven kinds of fruits and nuts is prepared
instead of the haft-sin.

Navruz is also an occasion for public cel-
ebrations. On the last Wednesday of the old year
people set bonfires in the streets or parks and
take turns jumping over them, celebrating the

increased spring daylight and the good things
connected with it. Like Halloween in America,
children wearing shrouds representing the spirits
of the dead go door to door, banging on pots and
pans and collecting treats. This is related to a
tradition of driving away the forces responsible
for causing bad luck. A clown named Hajji Firuz
sings and dances in the streets announcing the
arrival of the New Year. People customarily wear
new clothes for this popular holiday. The end
of the holiday period is marked by a picnic and
disposal of green sprouts that were grown for this
occasion.

Even though Navruz is not an Islamic holiday,
it nonetheless has taken on Islamic associations in
the past, especially among the Shia. According to

Navruz haft-sin display in a Persian home (Venus Nasri)

-4=5=5

526 Nepal

tradition it is the anniversary of God's covenant
with Adam and his offspring at the beginning of
creation, Abrahams destruction of the idols of his
community, Muhammad's designation of Ali ibn
Abi Talib (d. 661) as his successor, and the future
appearance of the Hidden Imam, who will do
battle with the Dajjal (Antichrist).

See also calendar; children; holidays; Shiism.

Further reading: Najmieh Batmanglij, New Food for
Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and
Ceremonies , 3d ed. (Washington. D.C.: Mage Publish-
ers, 2004), 384-391; Mary Boyce, “Iranian Festivals.”
In Cambridge History oj Iran . Vol. 3, Part 2, The Seleu-
cid, Parthian, and Sasanian Periods, edited by Ehsan
Yarshater, 792-815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983); Bess A. Donaldson. The Wild Rue: A Study
of Muhammadan Magic and Folklore in Iran (London:
Luzac, 1938), 120-123.

Nepal

Nepal is a small country (approximately 54,362
sq. miles, slightly larger than the state of Arkan-
sas) located along the southern region of the
Himalayan range. It shares a border to the cast,
south, and west with India and to the north with
the Tibetan region of China. It has three distinct
geographic zones — the Himalayan range in the
northern region, the foothills and Kathmandu
Valley in the central region, and the Terai plains
in the southern region. It is home to the highest
peak in the world, Mt. Everest, and it is the birth-
place of the Buddha. Its population is approxi-
mately 29.5 million (2008 est.) and is a complex
and heterogeneous mix of both Indo-European
and Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups and languages,
and of various tribes and castes, each with their
own distinct languages and cultural traditions.
In the late 18th century, the Gorkha king Prithvi
Narayan Shah consolidated the territories of what
is today Nepal. With the exception of the period
of Rana rule from 1846 to 1951, descendants of
the shah king have ruled Nepal as a Hindu state

throughout most of the country's history. Since
1951 Nepal's form of government has changed
several times, most notably from a Hindu monar-
chy to a multiparty democracy and constitutional
monarchy in 1991, then to an absolute monarchy
in 2002, and most recently to a parliamentary
democracy achieved in April 2006 after months of
mass protests led by the country's seven political
parties and the Maoists. Since 1996 Nepal has suf-
fered from a Maoist insurgency that has resulted
in the deaths of over 10,000 Nepali people.

According to the 2001 Nepali government
census, Hindus constitute 80 percent of Nepal's
population, Buddhists 11 percent, and Muslims
4.2 percent. The majority of Nepali Muslims
live in the Terai region, with small populations
also in the Kathmandu Valley and the western
hill regions. There are numerous mosques and
madrasas in the Terai, including a prominent
Ahl-e Hadis (People of the Hadith) madrasa in
the southern district of Kapilvastu. In the Kath-
mandu Valley there arc seven mosques, the two
largest of which are the Kashmiri Taqiyya and the
Nepali Jame Masjid (Friday Mosque), and several
madrasas, which impart a mixture of Islamic and
government curriculum. Nepali Muslims arc of
varying ethnic and cultural backgrounds, primar-
ily Kashmiri, North Indian, Tibetan, Ncwari, and
Nepali, and they retain distinct cultural identities
as such. Most Nepali Muslims are Sunni and of
primarily Deobandi, Barelwi, Ahl-e Hadith, or
Tablighi Jamaat affiliation.

Though an eighth-century Arabic text entitled
Huducl al-alam (Boundaries of the world) men-
tions the import of musk from Nepal, suggest-
ing that there may have been early trade links
between Nepalis and Arab tradesmen, the earliest
historical evidence of Muslim presence in Nepal
comes from an inscription recording an invasion
in 1349 from the east by the Muslim sultan Shams
ad-din Ilyas of Bengal, which destroyed the royal
Hindu temple of Pashupatinath and the Bud-
dhist stupa Swayambunath. In the late 15th and
early 16th-centuries Kashmiri Muslim traders of

Night of Destiny 529

to be the heavenly mosque, and then ascends to
heaven (mi raj literally means "ladder"). During
his ascent through the heavens with Gabriel,
Muhammad meets former prophets — Adam, John
the Baptist, Jesus, Joseph, Enoch (Idris), Aaron,
Moses, and Abraham — who each acknowledge
his remarkable status. As his journey continues
the visions of the punishments suffered by the
inhabitants of hell and the rewards of the blessed
in paradise reflect major eschatological themes in
the Quran. After being advised by Moses during
his descent from the highest heaven to ask God
for a reduction in number of prayers, Muham-
mad eventually returns to his UMMA with the five
daily prayers.

While there is debate in the Muslim world
as to whether Muhammad's journey took place
in body or spirit, it represents a mandate for
Muhammad’s superiority in status over the former
prophets as the Seal of the Prophets. Many Mus-
lims celebrate the Night Journey and Ascent every
year on the 27th of Rajab (the seventh month on
their calendar). Sufis, in particular, understand
this story as a model of human devotion to God
and, conversely, God's devotion to his creation,
to be emulated in their own spiritual quests for
union with the divine. Among the most famous
Sufis who are said to have undertaken an ascent to
heaven are Abu Yazid Bistami (ninth century) and
Ruzbihan al-Baqli (d. 1209).

See also angel; Aqsa Mosque; Dome of the
Rock; prayer; Sufism.

Margaret Leeming

Further reading: Annemarie Schimmel, And Muham-
mad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in
Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1985); Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism:
Sufi , Quran , Miraj , Poetic, and Theological Writings
(Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1996); Abu Abd al-Rah-
man Sulami, Subtleties of Ascension: Early Mystical Say-
ings on the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey, the Isra
vva Miraj. Translated by Frederick Colby (Louisville,
Ky.: Fons Vitae, 2007).

Night of Destiny (Arabic: Laylat al-Qadr;
Persian: Shab-i Qadr/ Shab-e Qadr;
alternate meaning: Night of Power)

If Ramadan is the most sacred Islamic month, Lay-
lat al-Qadr is the most sacred night in that month.
The Arabic word qadr can mean both destiny and
power; Muslim commentators have differed over
which is the correct meaning. The phrase occurs in
Sura 97 of the Quran, which is called al-Qadr. The
first verse in this chapter states, "Indeed we have
revealed it on the Night of al-Qadr . . . the Night
of al-Qadr is better than a thousand months" (Q
97: 1, 3). Some commentators have identified this
passage with the event of Muhammad's receiving
the Quran in its entirety via angels who brought
it down to him from heaven. This belief seems to
contradict earlier accounts, which hold that the
Quran was revealed gradually during the last 23
years of Muhammad's life. To reconcile the two
views Muslim commentators have proposed that
the ANGELS first brought it down on one night
from the Preserved Tablet (God's heavenly book)
to the lowest level of heaven and that from there
Gabriel revealed it gradually to Muhammad in
Mecca and Medina. Still others say that the event
refers only to Muhammad's first revelation at the
Mountain of Light Hira outside of Mecca. Euro-
American Islamic studies scholars have pointed
out that the celebration of a single moment of
revelation may have been inspired by pre-Islam ic
Jewish and Christian traditions of revelation, such
as the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai and
the birth of Jesus. Shiis have added yet another
level of meaning to this night, for they believe it
is also when Fatima (ca. 605-633), Muhammad's
daughter and mother of the imams, was born, and
when Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) was martyred.

The holiday falls on one of the last odd-num-
bered nights in Ramadan; Sunnis usually observe
it on the 27th and Shiis on the 23rd. Devout
Muslims customarily go to mosques to celebrate
it, spending the entire night there in prayer and
listening to Quran recitations. Some even go on
retreat for up to 10 days at the end of Ramadan.

o

oil

When the first oil well was drilled in 1859 in
Titusville, Pennsylvania, oil, which is also called
petroleum, was used primarily for illumination.
The single most significant incentive to develop
the oil industry was the arrival of the motorcar,
run on gasoline, at the turn of the 20th cen-
tury. Today, oil is used in producing a variety
of products besides gasoline, including asphalt,
explosives, fertilizers, jet fuel, medicines, paints,
plastics, rubbers, waxes, and others. Because it is
a resource that is in high demand throughout the
world, oil plays a significant role in international
economics and politics.

The United States is the largest consumer of
oil, accounting for 25 percent of world oil con-
sumption in 2007. China is a distant second, at
about 8 percent, and Japan third, at 6.5 percent. As
of 2004, 57 percent of total proven oil reserves arc
located in countries bordering the Persian Gulf,
with about one-fourth of the world's proven oil
reserves in Saudi Arabia alone. Iraq, Iran, Kuwait,
and the United Arab Emirates are the countries
with the second, third, fifth, and sixth largest
proven oil reserves, respectively. Other countries
with high proven oil reserves include Libya and
Nigeria, which are the ninth and 10th largest.

At first, the oil resources of countries with
Muslim majority populations were under direct
or indirect outside control; for example, Iraq
and Kuwait were under British colonial control,
and Iran was under British and Russian influ-
ence. Saudi Arabia, while an independent king-
dom, conceded development and control of its
oil resources to American petroleum companies.
Therefore, oil resources in such countries were
directly controlled by a number of foreign com-
panies. In exchange for these concessions over
control of their oil production, the host countries
received a percentage of the revenue generated.
Initial attempts to seize control by the host coun-
tries were met with failure — in 1951 Muhammad
Musaddiq (d. 1967), the prime minister of Iran,
nationalized the British-owned oil company in
charge of Iran's oil, but in 1953 a coup instigated
by the United States ousted Musaddiq and put a
pro-U.S. leader, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, back
into power. He quickly offered oil concessions
to the West. However, with the formation of the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) in 1960 and the widespread nationaliza-
tion of domestic oil resources in the 1970s, oil-
producing countries gained control over their oil
production and price setting.

532

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries 533

After the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the main oil-
producing states found themselves with revenues
vast enough to assure them a clear position of
influence throughout the Muslim world. Saudi
Arabia, in particular, found itself in a position to
export its conservative Wahhabi form of Islam
through international development and charity
projects, supporting international Islamic asso-
ciations, and even distributing Wahhabi texts in
mosques and madrasas throughout the world.
Oil also provides an incentive for immigration to
oil-producing countries, particularly in the Gulf,
where annually millions of foreigners from all
over the world go to work in the oil industry and
remit money back to their home countries.

Oftentimes foreign policies from within and
without oil-producing countries are heavily influ-
enced or dictated by the need for cheap oil. In
1996, for example, the Taliban came to power
in Afghanistan, and were at first supported by
the United States, in part because a huge pipeline
project was at the time under negotiation between
the Taliban and UNOCAL, a major American oil
company.

Oil was also a crucial factor in the two Gulf
Wars between the United States and Iraq. In
August 1990 Saddam Husayn (r. 1979-2003),
the Iraqi president, ordered the invasion of
Kuwait largely because of concerns that Kuwait
was undermining oil prices. In January 1991 the
United States led a coalition to drive Iraq out
of Kuwait, a decision heavily influenced by the
concern of the administration of George H. W.
Bush that Saddam Hussein would seize control
of Saudi oilfields. Further, in March 2003, the
administration of George W. Bush also invaded
Iraq. One of the primary reasons for this deci-
sion was the belief that, by seizing control of
the country with the second largest proven oil
reserves, the United States could weaken Saudi
Arabia's leverage over oil pricing and exercise
greater control over access to the worlds major
petroleum resources. Further, the Bush adminis-
tration sought to ensure U.S. energy security and

protect American consumers from the prospect of
rising oil prices.

Historically, oil prices have widely fluctuated.
Two major oil crises, the first engendered by the
1973 OPEC oil embargo and the second by the
Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, drove oil prices
up sufficiently high to damage Western economies.
As of 2006 oil prices reached record highs at $75
per barrel, largely caused by demand for motor
fuel in the United States, damage caused by Hurri-
cane Katrina to American oilfields, rebel attacks in
Nigeria that damaged the country's oil output, the
virtual collapse of Iraq's oil industry following the
American invasion, fears of a U.S. strike on Iran,
and increasing demand by rapidly industrializing
countries. In 2008, oil prices exceeded $150 per
barrel, then began a rapid decline.

Sec also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Gulf States;
Islamism; madrasa; Wahhabism.

Joshua Hoffman

Further reading: Norman J. Hync, Nontechnical Guide
to Petroleum Geology, Exploration, Drilling, and Produc-
tion (Tulsa, Okla.: Penn Well Corp., 2001); Oystein
Noreng, Oil and Islam: Social and Economic Issues
(Chichester, N.Y.: J. Wiley and Sons, 1997); Francisco
Parra, Oil Politics: A Modern History of Petroleum (Lon-
don and New York: LB. Tauris, 2004); Ian Rutledge,
Addicted to Oil: America's Relentless Drive for Energy
Security (New York: Palgravc Macmillan, 2005); Tobcy
Shelley, Oil: Politics, Poverty, and the Planet (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

Oman See Gulf States.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC)

OPEC is an international body consisting of 1 1
countries, the purpose of which is to coordinate
its members' oil-producing and selling policies.
Founded in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, and Venezuela, it has since expanded to

534 Organization of the Islamic Conference

include Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, the United Arab
Emirates, Nigeria, and Algeria. Today the OPEC
countries account for 40 percent of world OIL
production. Initially the stated goal of OPEC was
to nationalize and gain control of its members' oil
resources, which at the time were held primarily
by American, British, and Dutch transnational
corporations, including British Petroleum, Exxon,
Texaco, and others.

By 1973 many of the OPEC countries had
made progress in seizing control of their oil
resources. However, it was not until the out-
break of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war that OPECs
international power became visibly apparent,
when, led by its Arab members, OPEC doubled
the price from $2.55 to $5.09 per barrel, and
the Arab countries imposed an embargo on the
United States because of its close ties with Israel.
Between 1973 and 1978 OPEC raised the price
three times. However, OPECs unity began to
fray in 1980 when war broke out between Iraq
and Iran, two of its most important members.
Falling demand meant lower prices from 1983
onward, and the flooding of the market in 1986
by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, aimed at weakening
Iran, brought the price down. Leading up to the
1990-91 Gulf War, SADDAM Husayn (r. 1979-
2003) urged OPEC to push world oil prices up,
but the disunity among OPEC countries failed
to bring that into effect. As oil prices continued
to drop, OPEC coordinated a scaling back of oil
production beginning in 1998.

In mid-2004 OPEC announced that its mem-
bers had little excess pumping capacity, indicat-
ing that it was losing influence over oil prices.
Faced with record oil prices in 2006 OPEC
members declared their inability to increase out-
put in order to drive prices down, leading some
to speculate that the organizations power may
be waning. However, although OPEC countries
have accounted for an average of 40 percent of
world oil production since 1970, the amount of
proven world oil reserves under their control is

much higher, at around 69 percent. This implies
increased OPEC production as a proportion of
total world production over the long term.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Gulf Wars.

Joshua Hoffman

Further reading: Jahangir Amuzcgar, Managing the Oil
Wealth: OPECs Windfalls and Pitfalls (London and New
York: I.B. Tauris, 2001); Nathan J. Citino, From Arab
Nationalism to OPEC: Eisenhower, Kind Sand, and the
Mahing of U.S. -Saudi Relations (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2002); Dag Harald Claes, The Politics
of Oil-Producer Cooperation (Boulder, Colo.: Wcstvicw
Press, 2001).

Organization of the Islamic Conference
(OIC)

The OIC is an international body composed ol
57 member states, most of which have Muslim
majorities. There arc also 13 states and organiza-
tions that have observer status, including the Arab
League, the United Nations, the Russian Fed-
eration, Thailand, and the Moro National Libera-
tion Front of the Philippines. In June 2007 the
United States announced that it would be sending
a special envoy to OIC meetings. India, with the
world's second largest Muslim population, has
expressed a desire to obtain observer status, but
this has been blocked by Pakistan, its chief rival
in South Asia.

The OIC was established in Rabat, Morocco,
in September 1969. Its aims are to promote coop-
eration among Muslim countries and to serve as a
collective voice for Muslim interests on the world
scene. In the aftermath of World War II several
new transrcgional power blocs of nation-states
were created. These included the bloc of Western
capitalist countries led by the United States and
western European countries, the bloc of commu-
nist countries led by the Soviet Union and China,
the nonaligned countries (such as India, INDONE-
SIA, and Egypt), as well as international organiza-

Organization of the Islamic Conference 535

tions such as the United Nations and the Arab
League. Although newly decolonized Muslim
countries had long been aware of the pan-lslamic
notion of a united community (i/mma) of the faith-
ful, they lacked a means by which to establish a
common bond or collectively exert their influ-
ence in global affairs in the 20th century. This
situation changed considerably when the secular
Arab nationalist movement under the leadership
of Jamal Abd al-Nasir (d. 1970) lost its credibility
as a result of the shocking victory of Israel over
Egypt Jordan, and Syria in the 1967 Arab-Isracli
war. At the same time many governments in Mus-
lim countries feared the spread of socialism and
communism, especially among newly urbanized
populations and youth.

Saudi king Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz (d. 1975),
a life-long opponent of the secular Arab national-
ist movement and communism, spearheaded an
international effort to promote solidarity among
Muslim countries and create an international
organization with a specifically Islamic identity.
The loss of Jerusalem to Israel and a failed attempt
to burn down the Aqsa Mosque by an Australian
evangelical Christian in August 1969 helped King
Faysal convince enough Muslim leaders to con-
vene a summit meeting in Rabat in 1969. This led
to several follow-up meetings and finally a charter
issued in February 1972. It had 25 founding mem-
ber states, including Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey,
Iran, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Chad, and Niger, in
addition to Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

The OIC, which has its main headquarters
in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, resembles the UN in its
organization. It has a permanent Secretariat and
five standing committees that specialize in social,
cultural, economic, and financial affairs. There arc
also a number of other OIC subsidiary institutions
and affiliates located in several Muslim countries,
ranging from Turkey to Uganda, Bangladesh, and
Malaysia. These organizations include universi-
ties, a research center, media organizations, a
chamber of commerce, a fiqh academy, and even a

sports federation for the Islamic Solidarity Games.
The OIC has held 10 summit meetings for heads
of state since 1969, plus three extraordinary
sessions. The last of the extraordinary sessions,
convened in 2005, dealt with the controversial
cartoons of Muhammad that were published in
Danish newspapers in September of that year. In
addition to the summit meetings the OIC also
holds annual meetings for the foreign ministers of
member states. Recent meetings have been held
in Karachi (2007), Baku (2006), Sanaa (2005),
Istanbul (2004), and Tehran (2003).

The work of the OIC has centered on politi-
cal matters rather than on religious affairs, and
Saudi influence is significant. The OIC has sought
to have a voice in resolving Arab-Israeli con-
flicts, the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88, the Bosnian
crisis, the status of Kashmir, and recent issues
pertaining to the threat of Islamic radicalism, the
Israeli-Lebanese war of 2006, the reconstruction
of Afghanistan, and Darfur. On the issue of the
U.S. occupation of Iraq and its consequences,
it has recently resolved to affirm the territo-
rial integrity and sovereignty of Iraq, calling for
greater participation by neighboring countries and
international agencies in its reconstruction. It has
also condemned terrorist attacks on civilians. On
specifically religious affairs, its most important
achievement has been to establish quotas for the
number of pilgrims each country can send for the
annual hajj to Mecca.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Bosnia and
Herzegovina; Federation of Islamic Organiza-
tions; Gulf Wars; Pan-Islamism.

Further reading: Robert R. Bianchi, Guests of God:
Pilgrimage and Politics in the Islamic World (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004); Golam W. Choudhury,
Islam and the Contemporary World (London: Indus
Thames, 1990); Saad S. Khan, Reasserting International
Islam: A Focus on the Organization of the Islamic Con-
ference and Other Islamic Institutions (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 2001).

538 Osama bin Ladin

other areas of study, including postcolonial stud-
ies, literary criticism, gender studies, film studies,
and ethnic studies.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Arabian
Nights; Christianity and Islam; colonialism; Gulf
wars; terrorism; women.

Further reading: Zachary Lockman, Contending Visions
of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004); Alex-
ander L. Macfie, Orientalism: A Reader (New York: New
York University Press. 2001); Maxime Rodinson, Europe
and the Mystique of Islam. Translated by Roger Vcinus
(London: I.B. Taurus, 1988); Edward Said. Orientalism
(1978. Reprint, New York: Random House. 2003).

Osama bin Ladin See Usama bin Ladin.

Oslo Accords

The Oslo Accords, or Declaration of Princi-
ples, became the foundational documents for an
attempted peace between Israel and the Palestin-
ians in the 1990s. Signed in 1993 by Israel and
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the
decrees initiated a hopeful era of negotiations, but
they failed ultimately to forge a lasting peace.

Initiated by Norway’s foreign minister, Johan
Jorgcn Holst, the negotiations that resulted in the
Oslo Accords were conducted in secret. Signed
privately on August 20, 1993, the world watched
with some disbelief a public handshake of approval
between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and
the leader of the PLO, Yasir Arafat, hosted by U.S.
president Bill Clinton on the White House Lawn
on September 13, 1993. By signing the docu-
ments, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate
representative of the stateless Palestinian people,
and the PLO renounced violence against Israel
and asserted the Jewish states right to exist.

The contents of the Oslo Accords served as the
framework for a subsequent transitional period of
rule over the territories of the West Bank and Gaza

Strip, occupied by Israel in 1967. In the docu-
ments, Israel agreed to withdraw from parts of the
Occupied Territories, and a newly created Palestin-
ian Authority (PA) assumed self-rule over parts of
the territories in place of the Israeli military. The
West Bank and Gaza Strip were divided into Areas
A, B, and C, with A regions under the control of
the Palestinian Authority, B regions under Pal-
estinian civil and Israeli military control, and C
regions under full Israeli control. The map of these
regions, however, was significantly fragmented;
nevertheless, at the height of the PA’s authority in
the late 1990s, the majority of Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories lived under some form of
Palestinian civil rule.

Many of the most contentious issues of the
Israel-Palestinc conflict, including the expansion
of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories,
the issue of the status of Jerusalem, and the fate
of Palestine's massive refugee population were
purposely left out of the agreement. According
to the Oslo Accords, final status talks, including
issues pertinent to these topics, were to begin no
later than May 1996. However, despite further
diplomatic efforts from 1994 until 2000, the final
status talks promised by the Oslo Accords were
not held. Furthermore, the dissolution of the
Palestinian Authority in the wake of the al-Aqsa
intifada of 2000 and Israels dramatic response to
it have rendered the Oslo Accords obsolete.

See also Aqsa Mosque; Arab-Israeli conflicts;
refugees.

Garay Mcnicucci

Further reading: William L. Cleveland, A History of the
Modern Middle East (Boulder. Colo.: Westvicw Press,
2000); Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, The Israel-
Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East
Conflict, 6th ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2001).

Ottoman dynasty (1299-1922)

The Ottoman dynasty ruled over an empire in the
Middle East and Balkans (southeastern Europe)

Ottoman dynasty 539

't?^3

between the 14th and 20th centuries. It takes its
name from Osman (also spelled Uthman, r. 1281-
1326), a warrior who led a Turkish principality
in the period following the demise of the Ana-
tolian Seljuk Sultanate (1077-1307). Ottoman
control was consolidated in western Anatolia and
extended to the Balkans under Osman's successors
Orhan 1 (r. 1326-62) and Murad 1 (r. 1362-89),
and was extended eastward under Bayezid I (r.
1389-1402). It was under Mehmed II (r. 1444-46,
1451-81) that the Ottomans conquered Constan-
tinople, the last bastion of the Byzantine Empire,
in 1453. With Constantinople (Istanbul) as its
capital, the Ottoman Empire continued to con-
solidate politically, administratively, and legally.

The empire reached its apogee in the 16th
century. Sultan Selim I (r. 1512-20) conquered
Egypt and assumed control over the holy cities
of Medina and Mecca and as far south as Yemen.
His successor, Suleyman 1 (known as “the Mag-
nificent,” r. 1512-66), conquered Hungary, and
even besieged Vienna in 1529. Their successes
were due in part to a strong infantry, known as
the Janissaries. But these successes were followed
by military defeats in confrontations with the
empire's main rivals — the Austrians in Europe
and the Safavids of Iran — in the late 16th century.
The Ottoman Empire had been built on military
conquests, and when expansion was checked,
the empire began to decline. The 18th century
was marked by confrontations with the empires
new rival, Russia, and a complex web of political
relationships developed between the empire and
European powers.

Confronted with the military superiority of the
West, the Ottomans began to institute moderniz-
ing reforms in the 19th century. The empires first
constitution was enacted in 1876, but it was soon
repealed by Abd al-Hamid II (r. 1876-1909), who
preferred autocratic rule. The constitution was
reenacted in 1908 in response to the Young Turk
Revolution, and Abd al-Hamid 11 was deposed in
1909. The empire had come to be dominated by
the European powers, and the decision to side

Sultan Ahmed Mosque (early 17th century), Istanbul,
Turkey (Juan E. Campo)

with the Germans in World War 1 brought about
disastrous peace terms at the end of hostilies.
With the British occupying Istanbul, Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk led a nationalist resistance, which
eventually won independence and overthrew the
Ottoman regime. The last of the Ottoman sultans,
Mehmed VI (d. 1926), was deposed in 1922. His
successor, Abd al- Majid 11, continued to hold the
title of caliph until this position was abolished
in 1924. From the ashes of the Ottoman Empire
modern Turkey emerged under the leadership of
Ataturk (r. 1923-38). The Ottoman household
has continued to survive to the present day, but it
lacks any political authority. The current head of
the House of Osman, Ertugrul Osman (b. 1912),
lives in New York City.

Sunni Islam was the official religion of the
Ottoman Empire, with the Hanafi Legal School
as the basis of state law. The Ottomans also
allowed Shafii law to prevail in areas where it had
significant followings, such as Egypt, Syria, the
Hijaz (western Arabia), and among the Kurds.
Through conquests and population resettlements,
Sunni Islam was brought to the Balkans. The
Ottomans were generally opposed to Shiism, but
they allowed some degree of latitude to the Alawis
of Anatolia and Syria (where they are also known

painting Sec art; calligraphy.

Pakistan (Official name: Islamic Republic
of Pakistan; Urdu/Persian: Land of the
Pure, also an acronym for five homelands
of its people— Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir,
Sindh, and Baluchistan)

Pakistan is a South Asian country. It has an area
of 307,374 square miles, comparable in size to the
states of Texas and Virginia combined. It is bor-
dered by the Arabian Sea to the south, India and
Kashmir to the east, China to the north, and Iran
and Afghanistan to the west. The Indus River
transects the country from the Himalayas in the
north to the Arabian Sea.

Pakistan was created as a homeland for Indian
Muslims through the partition of the Indian sub-
continent following independence in 1947 from
British imperial rule. Its population is approxi-
mately 172.8 million (2008 estimate) and its capi-
tal is Islamabad. Ninety-seven percent of Pakistan's
population is Muslim, which makes it the second
largest Muslim country after Indonesia. (India has
the second largest Muslim population overall, but
it is not a Muslim-majority country.) About 80
percent of Pakistani Muslims are Sunnis and follow
the Hanafi Legal School. Pakistan's Shii minority

are predominantly followers of Twelve-Imam Shi-
ism, although it also has a small Ismaili population.
It is also home to a large number of members of the
Ahmadiyya sect, although they are legally consid-
ered to be non-Muslims by the government. There
are also relatively small numbers of Christians
(about 1 percent), Hindus, and Parsis (Zoroastri-
ans) in the country. Pakistan became the first Mus-
lim nation to elect a woman as head of state when
Benazir Bhutto became prime minister in 1988. She
was reelected in 1993 but was assassinated during
her third campaign for this office in 2007.

The idea that Muslims in the Indian subconti-
nent needed their own autonomous political iden-
tity was first articulated in the early 1930s by the
influential poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (d.
1938). By 1940 fears of an imminently independent
India that would be dominated by a Hindu majority
compelled the All-India Muslim League to enact
the Pakistan Resolution, and, under the leader-
ship of Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1949), who
envisioned Pakistan as a liberal democratic state for
Muslims, the Muslim League worked alongside the
Hindu-dominated, but secularist, Indian National
Congress for independence from the British.

When Pakistan was created on August 14,
1947, Jinnah became its first governor-general. In
1949 the Objectives Resolution was passed stating

541

542 Palestine

that the constitution of Pakistan would be based
on democratic and Islamic principles. This paved
the way for the 1956 Constitution, which provided
for a parliamentary form of government, though it
was soon followed by a period of martial law. In
the civil war of 1971, the eastern region of Paki-
stan became the independent state of Bangladesh.

In 1977 Prime Minister Zia-ul-Haq (r. 1977-88)
introduced strict Islamic codes that included obliga-
tory Islamic zetkat taxes, SHARIA courts, enforcement
of Islamic punishments, partial elimination of bank
interest, and Islamic-oricntcd revisions of school
curriculum. Since then, major debates and periods
of political instability have continued to center
around the appropriate role of Islam and Islamic
law in the state. Though sharia remains the guiding
paradigm for Pakistan’s legal system — interpreted
and implemented to varying degrees province by
province — Pervez Musharraf, who took power by
force in 1999, was a moderate on issues of the role
of Islam in the state. He was driven from office by
popular opposition in 2008 and the new govern-
ment also holds moderate religious views.

Since the partition of the Indian subconti-
nent, Pakistan has had strained relations with its
neighbor India. A major point of dispute has been
the contested boundaries of Kashmir, which led
most recently to the Kargil war in 1999. In 1998,
the same year that India tested nuclear devices,
Pakistan became the world's seventh country to
develop nuclear capabilities, and tension between
the two countries took on a new dimension with
the possibility of nuclear confrontation.

Pakistan has been home to or has supported
a number of Islamist movements and organiza-
tions. The Jamaat-i Islami, founded by Abu al-Ala
Mawdudi (d. 1979) in India, has been active in
Pakistani affairs since the country's creation. Pri-
vately managed mosques and madrasas (Islamic
schools) have provided the majority of educa-
tional opportunities in the country as well as a
base for independent, and often oppositional,
Islamist organizations. During the 1980s Pakistan
cooperated with the United States and other coun-

tries in helping the Afghan Mujahidin conduct a
guerrilla war against Soviet forces that occupied
Afghanistan in 1978. Millions of Afghans came to
Pakistan as refugees to escape the turbulence in
their native land, and the refugee camps in eastern
Pakistan provided fertile ground for recruiting
fighters. The Pakistani intelligence service (1S1)
later gave aid to the Taliban, a radical Islamist
organization that ruled most of Afghanistan from
1996 to 2001. Since 2001 the Pakistani govern-
ment has supported the United States in its anti-
terrorism efforts in a military campaign against
the Taliban and al-Qaida hideouts along the
Afghan-Pakistani border.

See also All-India Muslim League; crime and
punishment; Jamiyyat al-Ulama-i Islam; madrasa.

Megan Adamson Sijapati

Further reading: Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between
Mosque and Military (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 2005); Moham-
mad Asghar Khan, cd., Islam, Politics, and the State: The
Pakistan Experience (London: Zed Books, 1985); Soofia
Mumtaz, Jcan-Luc Racine, and Imran Anwar Ali, eds.,
Pakistan: The Contours of State and Society (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002).

Palestine

Since Roman times, the term Palestine has referred
to a region in the eastern Mediterranean rich
in spiritual and historical significance. It is his-
torically diverse in religions and ethnicities, a
characteristic that has contributed to the modern
Palestinian experience as one of conflict, struggle,
and controversy. Palestine is claimed as sacred
space by Jews, Christians, and Muslims and is
often referred to as the “Holy Land.'' As the focus
of both spiritual longing and political contest for
many centuries it has drawn world attention far
beyond its borders, particularly in the past 100
years following the emergence of modern nation-
alism in Palestine.

Palestine 543

Arabs constituted a majority in Palestine from
the seventh century C.E., and, with the excep-
tion of the Crusader era (11 th— 1 3th centuries),
the people of Palestine, known as Palestinians,
were ruled by leaders who confessed Islam until
1917. Under the Ottoman Empire Palestine was
governed as a part of the Greater Syria province,
which included the current nations of Syria, Jor-
dan, Lebanon, Israel, and the Occupied Territo-
ries (Gaza and the West Bank).

Like their European neighbors and Middle
Eastern contemporaries, the people of Palestine
began to engage with serious issues of modern
nationalism in the 19th century, a process that
developed rapidly with the emergence of Zion-
ism in the 20th century. As in nations such as
Iraq and Egypt, Palestinians were proud of their
Arab heritage, and many embraced ideas of pan-
Arabism. However, their specific residence in
Palestine marked them as distinct from Arabs in
other countries, and the trauma of wide-scale dis-
placement in the wake of the creation of the state
of Israel in 1948 gave Palestinians a particularly
heightened need for a clearly articulated national
identity.

In the 20th century Palestinians have endured
tremendous upheavals and conflicts. Under the
British who occupied Palestine under a League
of Nations mandate (1917-48), Palestinian Arabs
formed a strong national identity in response to
the growing Zionist movement, but found them-
selves increasingly cast out of the nascent state
apparatus of the proposed Jewish state. When that
goal was realized with the creation of Israel, hun-
dreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed, and
Palestinians were faced with a massive diaspora
of refugees counting in the millions. The Israeli-
Arab war of 1967 resulted in Israel's occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza, expanding the popula-
tion of displaced Palestinians and strengthening
the nationalism of Palestinians demanding a state
of their own.

Although the creation of a Palestinian nation-
state has yet to be achieved, Palestinians constitute

a nation with a specific national identity. This iden-
tity has been heightened by the loss of Palestine to
an Israeli state, which asserts nationalism opposed
to an Arab presence in its borders. Two intifadas ,
or uprisings, against Israeli occupation have been
mounted (1987-93, 2000-present), but Palestin-
ians still struggle for national recognition. Although
Palestinians have expressed their national identity
in terms of secular politics by agencies such as the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), as well
as by the religiously grounded ideologies of the
Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), an unques-
tionable tenant of both has been the belief in a
unique Palestinian nationalism distinct from larger
pan-Arabist ideologies.

In the absence of an official census, it is esti-
mated there are about 10.5 million Palestinians
in the world today (2006 estimate), about half
of whom live in neighboring Middle Eastern
countries, the Americas, and elsewhere — many
as refugees. About 3.6 million reside in the occu-
pied West Bank and Gaza territories and another
1.3 million are Israeli citizens (2004 estimate).
The Palestinian territories are governed by the
Palestinian National Authority, a branch of the
PLO established after the Oslo Accords in 1994.
Its first head of state was Yasir Arafat (d. 2004),
and it is now led by Mahmoud Abbas (b. 1935).
Its legislative branch is the Palestinian Legislative
Council, an elective body with 132 seats.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; colonialism;
Dome of the Rock; Husayni, Amin; Jerusalem;
Ottoman dynasty.

Nancy Stockdale

Further reading: Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Walter
Laqueur and Barry Rubin. The Israel- Arab Reader: A
Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict. 6th ed.
(New York: Penguin Books, 2001); Edward W. Said, The
Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage, 1992); Tom
Segcv, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the
British Mandate (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry
Holt, 2000).

544 Palestine Liberation Organization

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

The Palestine Liberation Organization is the
national liberation movement of the Palestinian
people. It was originally founded in East Jerusa-
lem in May 1964 at the behest of Egyptian presi-
dent Jamal Abd al-Nasir (d. 1970) and other
Arab leaders who attended a summit meeting
in Cairo in January of that year. The PLO was
originally headed by a functionary of the Arab
League, Ahmad Shuqayri, but it was taken over
at a meeting of the Palestine National Congress
in Cairo in October 1968 by the largest Pales-
tinian guerrilla organization Fatah (Palestine
National Liberation Movement). Yasir Arafat
(d. 2004), the leader of Fatah, was chosen as
chairman of the PLO Executive Committee and
he remained in that position for more than three
decades. According to its 1964 charter, the PLO
was conceived as a secular organization whose
purpose was to reclaim the Palestinian homeland
from Jewish Zionists through popular armed
struggle (jihad). While asserting the Arabncss of
the Palestinian national ideal, it promised citi-
zenship to Palestinian Jews.

The PLO evolved into a full Palestinian gov-
ernment in exile with a representative parliament
(the Palestine National Council), a cabinet (the
PLO Executive Committee), and departments
that replicated ministries such as planning, social
affairs, and information. The PLO also encom-
passed armed guerrilla organizations (for exam-
ple, Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, and al-Saiqa), as well as unions and
mass organizations for women, workers, students,
and writers. The PLO became a coordinating
body for Palestinian military forces (the Palestine
Liberation Army) in Arab countries and guerrilla
organizations. It maintained significant military
forces in Jordan until 1970 and then in Lebanon
until the forced withdrawal of PLO fighters after
the Israeli invasion of the country in 1982. The
PLO was totally eclipsed as a significant military
threat to Israel by the defeat in 1982 and a series

of Israeli assassinations of leading members of the
PLO in the 1980s, including two of the original
founders of Fatah, Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad)
and Salah Khalaf (Abu lyad).

Shortly after Fatah gained ascendancy in the
PLO in 1968, the organization achieved unprec-
edented diplomatic recognition in the interna-
tional arena and especially in the United Nations.
In 1969 the UN General Assembly first affirmed
the right of “the people of Palestine” to “self-
determination." In 1970 a General Assembly
resolution affirmed that the Palestinians were vic-
tims of "colonial and alien domination" and were
therefore entitled to restore their rights “by any
means at their disposal. The PLO international
diplomatic initiatives were capped in 1974 by the
first full-fledged debate on the Palestine question
in the UN since 1947 and Chairman Arafat was
invited to New York that October to address the
General Assembly. In 1975 the General Assembly
set up a permanent committee for exercising the
rights of the Palestinians to self-determination
and the UN Secretary General is still bound to
report to this committee to this day.

The Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and
Gaza in 1988, known as the intifada , bolstered
the international consensus for the creation of
an independent Palestinian state led by the PLO.
However, after the first Gulf War in 1991, the PLO
gave up its strategy of UN diplomacy. Chairman
Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin
(d. 1995) signed the Oslo Accords on the lawn
of the White House on September 13, 1993. In
exchange for U.S. recognition and Israel's allowing
Arafat to set up a restricted Palestinian Authority
in the West Bank and Gaza, the PLO favored the
United States instead of the UN as the arbiter of
Palestinian national legitimacy. However, the Oslo
Accords did not recognize an independent Pales-
tinian sovereign entity and described the Palestin-
ian negotiating partner as the "PLO team" within
a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to a Middle
East peace conference. There were no enforce-
ment mechanisms within the agreement that

pan-lslamism 545

would compel Israel to abide by the terms of the
West Bank and Gaza withdrawal clauses.

As the terms of the Oslo Accords were never
implemented, the Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza once again rose up in the fall of 2000. Israeli
military forces besieged PLO chairman Arafat's
headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
They decimated the administrative infrastructure
of the Palestinian Authority, including its police
forces. Israeli leaders called for the expulsion of
Arafat from the West Bank and the PLO diminished
as a significant political force for a negotiated settle-
ment to the Isracli-Palestinian conflict that became
increasingly militarized and violent. The PLO
remains as a symbolic shell for Palestinian national
aspirations. It remains to be seen if it can be revived
as a meaningful political structure for implement-
ing a future Palestinian sovereign state.

See also Arab-Israeli conflicts; Hamas;

REFUGEES.

Garay Menicucci

Further reading: Helena Cobban, The Palestinian Lib-
eration Organisation: People, Power and Politics (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); David Hirst,
The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in
the Middle East (New York: Thunders Mouth/Nation
Books, 2003); Graham Usher, Palestine in Crisis: The
Struggle for Peace and Political Independence after Oslo
(London: Pluto Press, 1995).

pan-lslamism (pan-Islam)

One of the responses Muslim leaders had to the
colonization of their lands by European powers
in the 19th century was what Europeans called
pan-lslamism. This was an attempt to forge a
modern Islamic political unity (ittihad-i Islam)
based not on nationality, ethnicity, or geography,
but on membership in the t/MMA, the universal
community of Muslims. Although this idea has
its roots in memories of Islamic unity in the
foundational era of Muhammad (d. 632) and
the first caliphs, it was more directly inspired

by 19th-century nationalist movements among
Slavs, Greeks, and others.

The pan-Islamist idea first took hold during
the 1870s in the lands of the Ottoman Empire,
which had been losing territory to the Russian
and Austro-Hungarian empires since the 17th
century. It was promoted by Sultan Abd al-
Hamid II (r. 1876-1909) and supported by the
Islamic reformer/activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
(1838-97) and later by Said Nursi (1878-1960).
The Ottomans had already initiated extensive
administrative reforms, the Tanzimat, aimed at
modernizing the state and limiting the influence
of traditional Islamic authorities and other oppo-
nents. As part of his pan-Islamist program Abd
al-Hamid revived the symbolic importance of the
CALIPHATE in an effort to win the support of Mus-
lims even beyond the boundaries of the Ottoman
Empire, where he sought to convince Muslims
that he was upholding the faith on their behalf.
He also built a new railway that carried pilgrims
to the sacred cities of Medina and Mecca from
Istanbul, the Ottoman capital, and other locations
along its path. In the 1870s al-Afghani traveled to
Afghanistan and other Muslim lands, including
Iraq, India, Iran, and Russia to promote the pan-
Islamist cause. Al-Afghani returned to Istanbul
from his mission in 1892, where he died a few
years later.

Abd al-Hamids efforts on behalf of Muslim
unity enjoyed little success. He encountered strong
opposition from a well-organized coalition of secu-
larist reformers known as the Young Turks, who
succeeded in forcing him to leave the throne in
1909. Pan-lslamism was also undermined by other
nationalist currents that were stirring in Ottoman
lands and India, and it failed to rally non-Sunni
Muslim minorities like the Shia. British support
for the Hashimites in the Arabian Hijaz helped end
Ottoman control and paved the way for Saudi con-
quest in the 1920s. Abd al-Hamid's own authoritar-
ian character was also detrimental. Pan-lslamism
was used to rally Muslim support for the Ottoman
alliance with Germany against Britain, France, and

546 paper

Russia in World War 1, but, by so doing, it fueled
efforts by France and Britain to break up its empire
after the war. They wanted to prevent pan-lslamism
from taking hold in Sunni Muslim lands and
threatening their own imperialist designs. Even the
caliphate was officially abolished by the new Turk-
ish republican government in 1924.

Despite the failure of Abd al-Hamids brand
of pan-lslamism, the ideal of Muslim political
unity continued to arise periodically in the 20th
century. It is evident in the Indian Khilafat Move-
ment of 1919-24 and international Islamic bodies
such as the Muslim World League (founded in
1962) and the Organization of the Islamic Con-
ference (founded in 1969). Iraq's Saddam Husayn
attempted to invoke pan-Islamist sympathies to
rally support against the international coalition of
powers that opposed his occupation of Kuwait in
1990-91. It has also been an aspect in the ideol-
ogy of some Islamist movements such as the early
Jamaat-i Islami and Hizb ut-Tahrir. The assertion
that radical Islamist organizations arc pan-Islamist
in orientation is an exaggerated one, however,
since most operate in relation to the political
landscapes of specific nation-states (for example,
Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.)

See also colonialism; Hashimite dynasty;
Islamism; Ottoman dynasty.

Further reading: Nikki R. Kcddie, “Pan-Islam as Proto-
Nationalism," Journal of Modern History 41 , no. 1 (March
1969): 17-28; Saad S. Khan, Reasserting International
Islam: A Focus on the Organization of the Islamic Con-
ference and Other Islamic Institutions (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 2001); Jacob Landau, The Politics oj
Pan-Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

paper See books and bookmaking.

paradise (Arabic: jewna; Persian: flrdaws)

Islamic beliefs about paradise are based partly on
biblical motifs found in the book of Genesis and

in later Jewish and Christian writings. They also
reflect indigenous Arabian ideas and some Per-
sian influence. Muslims conceive of paradise as a
verdant GARDEN of bliss where people are able to
meet with loved ones, God, the angels, and other
spiritual beings. Paradise is the primordial garden
of Adam and Eve, where the first human beings
met with God, the angels, and Satan. In this best
of possible worlds the first two humans went
without thirst and ate the fruits of the garden
until Satan tempted them to eat fruit from the one
tree that God had forbidden to them (Q 2:35-36;
20:117-123). When they did this, God expelled
them into the lower world of mortal existence.
When Adam repented for what he had done, God
forgave him and promised that he and his kind
would be able to return to it in the AFTERLIFE if
they are judged to have been among the righteous
after the resurrection. Islamic lore also indicates
that the perfumed plants and precious jewels that
people enjoy in this world originated in paradise
and that God allowed Adam to enjoy them in his
worldly existence. One jewel that originated in
paradise was the Bi_ack Stone, originally a white
sapphire that some early Muslim writings say
Gabriel gave to Adam. (It later turned to black
because of human impurity.) Even the Kaaba is
said to have come from paradise.

The afterlife paradise is described in great
detail in the Quran and other Islamic writings.
According to the Quran it is a great, gated garden
or park that is permeated by the scent of musk,
camphor, and ginger. It is graced with fountains,
and abundant rivers of water, milk, honey, and
wine flow through it (Q 47:15). Its inhabitants
wear luxurious clothing and dwell in beautiful
mansions furnished with couches, carpets, and
household goods made of gold and silver (Q 9:72;
35:55-58; 88:10-16). There they gather with loved
ones and the angels, and they are served food and
drink by handsome youths and beautiful young
women (sing, houri) (Q 43:71; 76:15-22). The
specially blessed will even be able to meet with
God, though theologians and Quran commenta-

pbuh 547

tors debated whether or not they would actually
be able to see him. Hadith literature describes
paradise as having eight gates, each named after
a different virtue. Some accounts speculate that
there may actually be eight paradises, not just
one. Each one would have its own name, taken
from the Quran, such as dar al-salam (House of
Peace), jannat al-khuld (Garden of Eternity), and
jannat Adin (the Garden of Eden). The hadith also
elaborate on the nature of life in paradise: people
will have beautiful bodies, they will never age, and
they will be able to enjoy carefree sexual relations.
The quranic paradise is the exact counterpart of
hell, which is a multileveled realm of fire, pain,
and suffering.

Ideas of paradise inspired rulers, writers,
artists, and architects, enriching the heritage
of Islamicate civilization. The grand mosque
of Damascus, the Alhambra palace in Granada
(Spain), and royal garden pavilions in Iran were
decorated with paradisal motifs. The capital of the
Abbasid Caliphate (8th-14th centuries), Baghdad,
was regarded as an earthly paradise, as reflected
in its alternate name, Madinat al-Salam (City
of Peace), alluding to dar al-salam , one of the
quranic names of paradise. Persian and Turk-
ish manuscripts depicting Muhammad's Night
Journey and Ascent include scenes of paradise
and the fire. The garden grounds of the exquisite
Taj Mahal of Mughal India (17th century) were
designed according to the four-garden ( chahar
bagh ) plan of Persian royal gardens, wherein
the waterways represented the four rivers of
paradise. Also, many Muslim homes and palaces
bear inscriptions and decorations that create a
symbolic relationship between the abodes of this
world and those of the afterlife.

See also eschatology; houses; martyrdom; Per-
sian LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Further reading: Sheila Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom,
cds., Images of Paradise in Islamic Art (Hanover. N.H.:
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1991); Juan
Eduardo Campo, The Other Sides of Paradise: Explora-

tions into the Religious Meanings of Domestic Space in
Islam (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1991); Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, The Remem-
brance of Death and the Afterlife , Kitab dhikr al-mawt
wa-ma badahu , Booh XL oj The Revival of the Religious
Sciences , Ihya ulum al-din. Translated by T. J. Winter
(Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1995).

pbuh

The four letters p-b-u-h combine to form an acro-
nym for the phrase “Peace be upon him,” which
is the English rendering of the Arabic alayhi
al-salam. It is used in English-language Islamic
publications and written texts whenever men-
tion is made of Muhammad as the prophet ( nabi
or rasul) of Islam. It is not used by non-Muslims
or in Western scholarship about Muhammad and
Islam.

Invoking peace on another is the signature
greeting used by Muslims. According to the
Quran, angels use it when greeting the blessed
in paradise (for example, Q 16:32) and people
should use it in greeting God's servants (Q
27:59). The peace blessing is also invoked by
the Quran for the prophets, including Abraham,
Moses, Aaron, and Elias (for example, Q 37:109,
114, 120, 130, 181). It is required in the perfor-
mance daily prayers, when the peace blessing is
recited for the Prophet (nabi) Muhammad, the
person performing the prayer, and believers in
general.

The peace blessing ( salam ) for Muhammad
as the prophet of Islam is an abbreviated render-
ing of an Arabic formula known as the tasliyya.
It consists of the invocation salla Allah alayhi wa
sallam (May God bless him and grant him peace),
which is used with reference to Muhammad (and
other prophets) in Arabic-language Islamic texts,
publications, sermons, recitations, and speeches.
There are several variations on this formula used
in everyday speech, including the popular expres-
sions “Bless the Prophet!” (salli ala al-nabi) and
“Bless the beauty of the Prophet!" (salli ala jama I

548 People of the Book

al-nabi) y as well as “May blessing and peace be
upon him” (alayhi al-salat wal-salam). Invoking
blessing and peace upon Muhammad is con-
sidered to be an expression of devotion that is
endorsed by the Quran, which states, “God and
the angels bless the Prophet. O you believers!
Bless him and greet him with peace" (Q 33:56).
In Islamic popular religion calling for blessing and
peace upon Muhammad is believed to bring Gods
blessing ( BARAKA ) and repel evil from the person
using it. Some Muslims believe it will win those
who use it Muhammad's intercession on Judg-
ment Day. Such phrases arc recited in Sufi dhikr
rituals and included in amulets that are worn on
the body or displayed in homes, businesses, and
vehicles.

See also afterlife; amulets and talismans;

PROPHETS AND PROPHECY.

Further reading: Constance E. Padwick, Muslim Devo-
tions: A Study of Prayer- Man mils in Common Use (1961.
Reprint, Rockport, Mass.: Oneworld, 1996), 152-166,
220-232.

People of the Book (Arabic: ah/ al-kitab;
alternately “those who have been given the
book” [alladhina utu al-kitab ])

Muslims believe that their religion is related to that
of the Jews and Christians through the holy books
God has revealed in human history to his proph-
ets. This belief is evident when they call Jews and
Christians “People of the Book," signifying that
they understand the Quran to be related to the
Torah of Moses, the Psalms ( Zabur ) of David, and
the Gospel of Jesus. All three holy books have
their origin in a single divine source — God. As
Muslims encountered new people they also used
this designation for Zoroastrians of Iran, Sabians
(identified with the Mandeans of southern Iraq or
the Yazidis of northern Iraq/southeastern Turkey),
Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. In the light of the
historical evidence the use of this designation,
therefore, was somewhat flexible, especially out-

side the Middle East. In terms of the SHARIA the
People of the Book held special legal status under
Muslim rule. As the people granted protection
( ahl al-dhimma , or dhimmis), Jews and Christians
enjoyed minority legal status that allowed them
to have their own religious authorities and follow
their own religious laws, as long as they paid the
jizya tax (irregularly enforced), remained loyal to
the state, and did not attempt to convert Mus-
lims or otherwise undermine the religion of the
state — Islam.

The source for the labeling Jews, Christians,
and others as People of the Book is the Quran,
where the phrase occurs 31 times (plus an addi-
tional 21 times in the alternative phrasing). It
occurs predominantly in the chapters that Mus-
lim tradition ascribes to the Medina period of
Muhammad's career, between 622 and 632. This
was when he and his followers had to negoti-
ate their relations as a religious minority with
other religious and social groups, as reflected in
the so-called Constitution of Medina. A number
of quranic verses depict relations of the faithful
Muslims (muminin) with others in terms of the
commonalities of their belief in one God and his
prophets, as reflected in Q 29:46-47 and 3:64, 84.
Many of the passages, however, reflect adversarial
relations between the three Abrahamic religions,
based largely on the assertion that Jews and Chris-
tians did not recognize Muhammad as a prophet
and that some of them had joined with the idola-
ters and disbelievers (for example, Q 2:105, 109).
This latter charge was connected with the Jewish
anticipation of a messianic savior and the Chris-
tian belief in Jesus as the son of God, as stated
in sura 9 Repentance, where some of the most
polemical statements against the People of the
Book are to be found. There believers are urged,
“Fight those who have been given the Book who
do not believe in God and the Last Day, who do
not forbid what God and his prophet have forbid-
den, and do not follow the true religion until they
pay the jizya tax with their own hands. They are
contemptible” (Q 9:29).

Persian language and literature 549

The designation of non-Muslims as People
of the Book has experienced a revival in recent
decades. Progressive and modern-minded Mus-
lims have invoked its egalitarian connotations
to further their efforts at interrcligious dialogue
and greater religious and cultural pluralism. On
the other hand, radical Islamist movements have
drawn from the more polemical verses in the
Quran concerning the People of the Book to jus-
tify attacking and subjugating them. For many
Muslims the concept today is primarily an aspect
of the heritage of the past, one that must give way
to modern secularism, nationalism, and the con-
struction of individual identities that differ from
those of confessional religious communities.

See also Christianity and Islam; dhimmi; Hin-
duism and Islam; idolatry; Judaism and Islam;

KAFIR ; UMMA.

Further reading: Ali S. Asani, “ So That You May
Know One Another: A Muslim American Reflects on
Pluralism and Islam." Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science 588 (July 2003): 40-51;
Ahd al-Aziz Sachcdina, “Jews, Christians and Muslims
According to the Quran." Greek Orthodox Theological
Review 31 (1986): 87-105; Zeki Saritoprak and Sydney
Griffith, “Fcthullah Gulcn and the People of the Book:
A Voice from Turkey for Interfaith Dialogue." Muslim
World 95, no. 3 (2005): 329-340.

Perfect Man (Arabic: al-insan al-kamil)

The concept of the Perfect Man, or Universal Man,
was most fully developed by the great 12th- 13th
century Sufi mystic and teacher Muhyi al-Din ibn
al-Arabi (d. 1240). According to Ibn al-Arabi,
humanity and the cosmos are two separate but
intimately connected constructions of the same
Universal Spirit (God), like two mirrors facing
each other. The Perfect Man, therefore, is that indi-
vidual who, in embarking on the Sufi path toward
self-annihilation, or fatia , discards his own quali-
ties and attributes and enters fully into the quali-
ties and attributes of God. In doing so the Perfect

Man fully realizes his oneness with the Universal
Spirit, becoming the medium through which God
is made manifest. As “the copy of God,” to quote
Ibn al-Arabi*s disciple, Abd al-Karim al-Jili (d. ca.
1423), the Perfect mans individuality is merely
his “external" form, while his “inward" reality is
the universe itself. Although Sufism considers all
prophets and messengers, as well as the imams
and the pirs (Sufi shaykhs), to be representatives
ol the Perfect Man, the paradigm of this unique
being for all Sufis is none other than Muhammad
(d. 632) himself.

See also baqa and fana; creation; Mulla
Sadra; theology.

Rcza Aslan

Further reading: Titus Burckhardt, An Introduction to
Sufi Doctrine (Wcllingsborough, England: Aquarian
Press, 1976); Anncmarie Schimmel, And Muhammad
Is His Messenger (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1985); IdriesShah, The Sufis (New York:
Anchor, 1964).

Persia See Iran.

Persian Gulf See Gulf States; Gulf Wars; Iran;
Iraq; Saudi Arabia.

Persian language and literature

Persian (also known as Farsi) is one of the lead-
ing languages, together with Arabic and Turkish,
known to the Islamicate cultures and civilizations.
It has been the medium for writing history, poetry,
PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, and religious literature among
Persian-speaking peoples in the Middle East and
Central and South Asia for more than one thou-
sand years. Today it is estimated that there arc
more than 100 million Persian speakers. It is an
official language in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajiki-
stan, but there are also sizeable Persian-speak-
ing populations in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and

Persian language and literature 551

roots, thus became the language of “high” Persian-
ate culture in Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and
later in Ottoman Turkey and North India. Among
the foremost literary works of this era was the epic
Shahnamah (Epic of kings), composed by Firdawsi
at the beginning of the 11th century. It drew upon
legends of the ancient kings of Persia, and related
tales of the heroic prince Rustam, the demonic
king Zahhak, and the lovers Bizhan and Manizhah,
as well as Zal and Rudabah. Altogether this work
tells 62 stories in 60,000 rhyming couplets and it
remains a favorite among Iranians to this day. Nasir-
i Khusraw (1003-88), an Ismaili missionary, wrote
poetry about his experiences and commentaries on
his times, as well as an account of his pilgrimage
to Egypt and Mecca. Another noteworthy work
of Persian literature was the Khamsa (Quintet) of
Nizami (1141-1209), which retold some of the
heroic and romantic stories of the Shahnamah , the
Arabic romance of Majnun and Layla, and incor-
porated poetic reflections on philosophical and
religious themes. Nizami had a great influence on
the subsequent development of Persian poetry.

Other major poets whose verses arc still mem-
orized by Persian speakers are Sanai (d. 1130),
Saadi (d. 1292), and Hafiz (d. 1390). Although
Persian poetry did not hesitate to draw upon
Arabic poetic conventions, a distinctive genre
developed by this group of writers was that of the
ghazal, a short lyrical poem that sought to evoke
aesthetic and emotional responses in the reader or
listener. It was especially concerned with the feel-
ings of love, separation, and union. Many of the
poems composed by these men reflect the influ-
ence of Sufism, making for some ambiguity with
respect to the meaning of the metaphors used.
Was the poem about worldly love or divine love?
Was the beloved a handsome boy or beautiful girl,
or was he/she God? Poets played with these ambi-
guities, but the meanings of the poetic imagery
were also determined by the setting and the audi-
ence. The most significant composers of Sufi verse
in Persian were Farid al-Din Attar (d. ca. 1230)
and Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-73). Attar wrote

several books of mystical poetry, the most famous
of which was M antiq al-tayr (The conference of
the Birds), a collection of didactic stories set in
the frame of the pilgrimage of a flock of birds
(representing the human soul) to their divine
king, Simurgh. Rumis most famous works were
Diwan-i Shams-i Tabriz , a collection of ghazals and
quatrains composed in honor of his spiritual mas-
ter and friend, Shams-i Tabriz, and the Xiathnawi
(also known as the M asnavi), a poem consisting
of rhyming couplets dealing with themes of sepa-
ration and union with God, conveyed through
quranic imagery, prophet and saint stories, and
metaphors drawn from everyday life. At 40,000
verses in length, Rumis Diwan is thought to be
the longest work of Persian poetry. His M athnawi
has been called by the scholar-poet Abd al-Rah-
manjami (1414-92) and others “the Quran in the
Persian tongue." It is held in the highest esteem
by speakers of Persian and Turks, and is familiar
to readers around the world, including the United
States, through many translated editions. One
of the last of the great Persian mystical writers
was Jami of Herat (now in Afghanistan), whose
most famous collection of poems, Haft awrang
(Seven thrones) expanded upon the symbolism
of romantic legends developed by Nizami and
other Persian poets to probe the hidden realities
of the world and of mystical experience. It had a
significant influence on later Sufi writings in both
Iran and India.

A significant body of Persian literature was
produced in India, starting with the reign of the
Delhi Sultanate (1211-1526) and continuing
through that of the Mughal dynasty (1526-1857).
It included histories, mystical texts, philosophi-
cal works, and, of course, poetry. The Mughal
emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) commissioned the
translation of Hindu epics into Persian, and his
great grandson Dara Shikoh (1615-59) translated
the Hindu Upanishads , and wrote several works
on mystical and philosophical topics. The first
great Persian poet to emerge in India was Amir
Khusraw of Delhi (1253-1325), a court poet

552 pesantren

and member of the Chishti Sufi Order. He was
a composer of ghazals and was inspired by the
stories of the Shahnaniah and Nizami's Khamsa. In
addition, he wrote historical poems in honor of
his royal patrons and collected the sayings of the
Chishti saint Nizam al-Din Awliya (1238-1325).
The large number of Persian historical, mystical,
and secular works produced in India contributed
significantly to the shaping of the modern Urdu
literary tradition. One of the major figures who
marked the linkage of these two South Asian lit-
erary traditions was Mirza Ghalib (1797-1867),
who wrote poetry and prose in both languages.

Critics have observed that Persian literature
declined in quality after Jami. Whether or not this
is the case, Western influence and the develop-
ment of print culture in the 19th and early 20th
centuries revolutionized it. New generations of
writers have emerged who have shown great cre-
ativity and promoted the exploration of radical
new ideas and visions. One of the most promi-
nent of these literary figures was Nima Yushij
(1897-1960), who combined his knowledge of
the classical Persian poetic heritage and his famil-
iarity with Russian and French poetics. His ideas
met with resistance from traditionalists, but he
also inspired others to engage in individualistic
styles of literary expression. This, together with
increased literacy, opened the door for female
writers, the foremost of whom was Furugh Far-
rukhzad (1935-67). Two of the leading writers
of fiction of Nimas generation were Muhammad
Ali Jamalzadah (1892-1997) and Sadiq Hidayat
(1903-51), each of whom specialized in crafting
the modern Persian short story. Many Iranian
writers, dramatists, and filmmakers were caught
up with the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79, but
when the government of the shah turned into a
theocracy under the rule of mullahs, a number of
liberal, independently minded artists went into
exile in Europe and the United States. This created
a tradition of Iranian diaspora literature, much
of which is now written in English and French
rather than Persian. Other authors have emerged

in Iran since the 1970s, some writing in support
of the governments Islamization policies, others
choosing to work on secular themes around the
margins of government censorship, under the
threat of possible imprisonment.

See also alphabet; Arabic language and lit-
erature; cinema; Iranian Revolution of 1978-
1979; Safavid dynasty; Turkish language and
literature.

Further reading: Farid ud-Din Attar, Conference of the
Birds. Translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis
(London: Penguin Books, 1984); Carl W. Ernst, The
Shambhala Guide to Sufism (Boston: Shambhala Pub-
lications, 1997); Reuben Levy, An Introduction to Per-
sian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press,
1969); Jalal al-Din Rumi, The Masnavi, Booh One. Trans-
lated by Jawid Mojaddcdi (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2004); Anncmarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimen-
sions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1975); Marianna Shrcvc Simpson, Persian Poetry ;
Painting and Patronage: Illustrations in a Sixteenth-Cen-
tury Masterpiece (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Insti-
tution, 1998); Ehsan Yarshatcr, cd., Persian Literature
(Albany, N.Y.: Bibliotheca Persica, 1988).

pesantren See Indonesia; kuttab ; madrasa.

pets See animals.

petroleum See oil.

Philippines (Official name: Republic of the
Philippines)

The Philippines is a country in Southeast Asia
comprised of 7,107 islands. The two largest islands
arc Luzon and Mindanao. Between Mindanao and
Luzon are several smaller islands collectively
called the Visayas. Malaysia and Indonesia are the
nearest neighbors to the south, and China lies to

554 philosophy

rules for legal reasoning in Islamic jurisprudence
(f/qh), as well as quranic exegesis (tafsir). And
whatever their polemical positions toward philoso-
phy qua philosophy, Muslim theologians (mutakal-
limun) were well versed in the arts of dialectical
reasoning. No less a theologian than Abu Hamid
al-Ghazali (1058-1111), author of The Incoherence
of the Philosophers (ca. 1095), ardently defended
the utility of Aristotelian logic for theology. Indeed,
“his arguments against philosophy are themselves
philosophical" (Leaman 2002: 27).

Islamic philosophy proper begins under the
auspices of the Abbasid Caliphate in the ninth
century. Its origins arc principally Greek, although
it was transmitted largely by Christian scholars
translating philosophical and other works into
Arabic (with some of these from Syriac transla-
tions of Greek manuscripts). Of lesser but not
insignificant impact was the rendering of Indian
and Persian literature likewise into Arabic.

Many of the ULAMA did not welcome works of
Peripatetic (Aristotelian and Pseudo-Aristotelian)
and Neoplatonic provenance into the circle of
Islamic sciences. The theologian Abu Said al-Sirafi
(d. 979), for instance, argued that the convention-
ality of language meant interpretative principles
must be unique to each language, thus Greek logic
may be applied to works in Greek, but it is wholly
inappropriate for the analysis of texts, say, in Ara-
bic. In general, Greek philosophy was perceived
as a challenge if not threat to the integrity of the
traditional Islamic sciences. Muhammad ibn Rushd
(Averrocs) (1126-98), a preeminent Islamic phi-
losopher, viewed philosophy and theology ( kalam )
as distinct yet compatible and alternative routes to
the same truth(s). Nevertheless, for Ibn Rushd,
philosophy alone leads to certitude owing to its
reliance on the formal logic of Aristotle. Accord-
ing to Ibn Rushd, philosophy does not deny the
assent to quranic truth provided by the rhetorical
and dialectical methods of the Islamic sciences,
for such sciences are well suited to the spiritual
pedagogical needs of the masses. Philosophy, on
the other hand, is not for the common man, but

is rather the prerogative of an elite in possession
of that rare combination of virtue and wisdom
( hikma ).

Philosophy flourished in the Islamic world from
the ninth to the 12th centuries. It met with consid-
erable opposition from two formidable figures:
al-Ghazali and Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya
( 1263-1328), the former arguably Islam’s great-
est theologian, the latter a notable Hanbali jurist
and theologian. Their main contention was that
the absolute truth of divine revelation could in no
way depend on the consent of the aql (“reason") of
the philosophers for its definitive confirmation. In
other words, the revealed will and law of prophetic
tradition is more than mere allegory or metaphor,
and in the end, the demonstrative syllogism of phi-
losophy cannot account for revealed truth. In brief,
al-Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyya proffered arguments
against those philosophers who subscribed to the
view that religion was intended for the salvation of
unsophisticated believers, whose piety could not
compensate for their lack of philosophical acumen.
For their part, most Islamic philosophers, com-
mencing with the Quran, were intensely devoted
to what we now term hermeneutic investigation.
One presumption of such scrutiny being the sacred
veracity of revealed texts.

A distinction is frequently drawn between
falsafa and hikma (‘wisdom'), and theology and
mysticism (Sufism) have often fallen under the
rubric of hikma, hence the categorical boundar-
ies between philosophy, theology, and mysticism
are blurred when considering a philosopher like
Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi (1154-91) or a Sufi like
Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240). In addi-
tion, and in spite of Abu Ali al-Husayn Ibn Sina’s
(A vicenna) (979-1037) enshrinement of this dis-
tinction as one between al-hikmat al-mashriqiyya
(Oriental philosophy) and Aristotelian thought,
most philosophers conceived of their enterprise
as exemplifying hikma.

Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (d. after
866), Islam's earliest philosopher of note, argued
there was no inherent contradiction or even

Pillars of Islam 555

antagonism between the philosophical heritage
of the Greeks and God's revelations. Al-Kindi's
conclusion, however, found few adherents, as
kalam and fcilsafa developed relatively indepen-
dent of each other, marked by periods of fertile
conflict and constructive engagement, Intrigu-
ingly, a philosophical disposition is at the core
of Mutazili theology, as the MuTAZILl SCHOOL
represents a species of theological rationalism in
which reason (ac/I) is accorded pride of place in
the determination of God's will as revealed in the
prophetic traditions, the Quran, and hadith. Abu
Nasr al-Farabi (ca. 870-950) is the traditions
first truly systematic philosopher and logician,
having penned a distinguished work of Islamic
political philosophy inspired by several Platonic
dialogues. Disagreeing with al-Sirafi, al-Farabi
stressed the fundamental differences between
the logic of philosophy and the rules of gram-
mar, with grammar unable to provide the logical
constraints for reasoning in language, nor was it
sufficient for explaining the kinds of reasoning
employed in the Islamic sciences.

Ibn Sina was a first-rate logician and the tradi-
tion’s greatest Neoplatonic philosopher. His impact
on medieval Christian theology and philosophy
was profound, as was his influence on European
science and literature. Indeed, he is responsible for
articulating the metaphysical vocabulary appropri-
ated by St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). Like Ibn Sina
before him, Ibn Rushd was a polymath, yet unlike
his predecessor, he was deeply involved in public
life, first as a judge of Seville and later as chief
judge of Cordoba, while also serving as the sultan's
physician. For Ibn Rushd, philosophy and religion
converge on the same truths, revelations speaking
through narrative, allegory, symbol, analogy, and
metaphor, while philosophy communicates with
the logical consistency, coherence, and concep-
tual clarity evidenced in the certitude attained by
syllogistic demonstration, a method befitting the
exalted reasoning of the philosophers.

There appears to be consensus among many
contemporary Muslim intellectuals that Islamic

philosophy reached its quintessential expres-
sion in the work of Muhammad ibn Ibrahim
al-Qawami al-Shirazi, better known as Mullah
Sadra (ca. 1572-1640). This is in consonance
with the historical observation that since the 12th
century, the cultivation of Islamic philosophy has
taken place largely on Shii soil, especially its Per-
sian precincts. In the modern period, something
of Islamic philosophy persists in the writings of
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-97) and Muham-
mad Abduh (1849-1905), although their output,
together with that of Muhammad Rashid Rida
( 1865-1935) and SAYYID Qutb (1906-66), is more
aptly seen as the product of Muslim intellectuals
rather than the musings of philosophers. Still,
our time knows something of Islamic philosophy
in the precious few works of the Indo-Pakistan
poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938),
while Seyyed Hossein Nasr (b. 1933) remains the
best-known and most prolific contemporary Mus-
lim philosopher.

See also afterlife; Allah; creation; fate; rev-
elation; SOUL AND SPIRIT.

Patrick S. O'Donnell

Further reading: Peter A. Adamson and Richard C. Tay-
lor, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philoso-
phy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
Majid Fakhry. A History of Islamic Philosophy, 3d cd.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2004); Lcnn E.
Goodman, Islamic Humanism (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2003); Oliver Leaman. A Brief Introduc-
tion to Islamic Philosophy (Oxford: Polity Press, 1999);

, An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy

2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, eds., History
of Islamic Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2001).

pilgrimage See hajj; umra; ziyara.

Pillars of Islam See Five Pillars.

558 prayer beads

IMAM (prayer leader). Although all prayer times
are considered obligatory, attending the Friday
(jumaa) noon prayer time is considered especially
meritorious; men are particularly encouraged
to participate collectively in this prayer at the
mosque. Although the Prophets hadith encour-
ages Muslim women to pray in the home, women
are not forbidden from praying at the mosque.
When they join men in the mosque, prayer is
traditionally sexually segregated, women praying
behind the men, or to one side, in a balcony or
other separate space. The reason given is to pre-
vent inappropriate sexual distraction from prayer.
Some mosques in the West or in more liberal
Islamic communities no longer practice sexual
segregation in prayer.

The second form of prayer is personal prayer
( duaa ), which is voluntary and additional to the
five times daily salat prayers. Personal prayer
allows believers to be creative and spontaneous in
their own native language instead of the Arabic of
formal prayer (only about 10 percent of Muslims
around the world are native Arabic speakers). The
believer can ask for specific needs or wants from
God on their own behalf or on behalf of family
and community. Believers have often used prayers
from collections authored by devout believers and
scholars and handed down from generation to
generation as prayer manuals. Although Islam has
no formal system of intercession — no priesthood
or formal hierarchy to mediate between believers
and God — it does have a strong popular tradition
of informal intercession ( wasila , Q 5:34, 17:57)
via holy persons, places, and objects. There are
prayers for blessings on Muhammad and his
immediate family, the Sufi saints, and Shii Imams;
local pilgrimage (ziyara) and prayers offered at the
birth and DEATH places and tombs of holy persons;
and objects that convey divine blessing ( BARAKA )
such as quranic prayers written, embroidered, and
carved functioning as AMULETS AND TALISMANS.

See also adhan; basmala; Id al-Adha; pbuh;

PRAYER BEADS.

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Further reading: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ed., Islamic
Spirituality: Foundations (New York: Crossroad, 1987);
Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali
Reza Nasr, eds.. Shiism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spiritual-
ity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988);
Jacob Neusner, Tamara Sonn, and Jonathan E. Brockopp,
Judaism and Islam in Practice: A Sourcebook (London:
Routledge, 2000); Constance E. Padwick, Muslim Devo-
tions: A Study of Prayer-Manuals in Common Use (1961.
Reprint, Rockport, Mass.: Oncworld, 1996); Muhammad
A. Rauf, Islam: Creed and Worship (Washington, D.C.:
The Islamic Center, 1974); John Renard, Seven Doors
to Islam: Spirituality and the Religious Life of Muslims
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

prayer beads

Muslims use prayer beads like a Catholic rosary
as a devotional aid to count recitations performed
during private worship. Known as the subha ,
tasbih, or misbaha , prayer beads are widely used
by Muslims from all parts of the Islamic world.
Use of beads in prayer and devotional practices
began as early as the ninth century. The subha is
composed of either a short single string of beads
or a long strand divided into three groups sepa-
rated by larger marker beads with a short handle
at the end. The beads are most often arranged in
groups of 1 1, 33, or 99 but the number may vary
if the handle or marker beads are intended to be
included in counting. In practice 100 beads must
be counted in reciting the 99 names OF God, most
of which are mentioned in the QURAN, and his
essential name Allah. Prayer beads are also used
in other recitation practices such as repetitions of
the phrase la ilaha ilia allah, (there is no god but
God). Sufis often employ prayer beads in their
recitation practices.

All Muslims are encouraged to constantly have
the name of God on their lips, and some choose
to always keep a set of beads in their hand for
this purpose. Some scholars historically discour-
aged the use of prayer beads based on reports in
the hadith. In these reports Muhammad (d. 632)

prophets and prophethood 559

encouraged using the joints of the fingers to
count recitations, though using pebbles and knots
in a string are also mentioned as acceptable. In
modern times Wahhabi scholars and some other
Muslims have renewed the debate by denouncing
the use of prayer beads as bidaa , a religious inno-
vation introduced after the time of Muhammad.
Nevertheless prayer beads remain an important
part of worship for many Muslims.

See also dhikr ; prayer; Sufism; Wahhabism.

Shau na Huffaker

Further reading: Daniel da Cruz, “Worry Beads." Saudi
Aramco World 19 (Novcmber-Dcccmbcr 1968): 2-3;
Samuel M. Zwcincr. 'The Rosary' in Islam. Muslim
World 21 (1931): 329-343.

prayer rug See prayer.

predestination See fate.

prophets and prophethood

Belief in prophets and prophethood is a primary
feature in the Abrahamic religions of Judaism,
Islam, and Christianity. Prophets are virtuosos
in divine-human communication. In Islam there
arc two main terms for prophet: (1) messenger
(sing, rasul, pi. rusul), the bringer of a message
or revelation sent from God via angels (imply-
ing that the transmitter of the message is not the
source and revelation is not a human product, but
divine speech, Q 16:2), and (2) the older Jewish
term navi prophet, or in Arabic nabi (pi. nabiyin
or anbiya) — a law bringer who mediates a specific
covenantal relation with God and conveys the
binding quality of divine law upon the commu-
nity of believers. Prophets as law-bringers are sent
by God to every people, conveying Gods message
in language they can understand (Q 30:47). This
was later interpreted to mean an Arabic revela-
tion to the Arab people, a Hebrew revelation to

the Jewish people, and a Greek revelation to the
Christian people (Muslims were familiar with the
Greek-speaking Christians of Byzantium).

In Islamic belief, the prophetic tradition begins
with the forefather of humanity, Adam, with whom
God is said to have formed a preexisting covenant
(Q 7:172). Islamic tradition accepts, and the Quran
details, the ongoing covenantal legacy of Jewish and
Christian prophets and revelations, including three
chief scriptures: (1) Jewish Torah (Arabic: tawrat,
encompassing Torah, Naviim, and Ketuvim [Penta-
teuch, Prophets, and Writings, except Psalms]), (2)
Zabur (the Psalms of David), and (3) Christian Injil
(“Gospel,” implicitly the whole of the New Testa-
ment). In addition to Muhammad, the full list of
prophets mentioned in the Quran includes: Adam,
Alyasa (Elisha), Ayyub (Job), Daud (David), Dhu
al-Kifl (Ezekiel), Hud, Ibrahim (Abraham), Idris
(Enoch), Ilyas (Elijah, Elias), Isa (Jesus), Ishaq
(Isaac), Ismail (Ishmael), Luqman, Lut (Lot), Musa
(Moses), Nuh (Noah), Salih, Shuayb (Jethro),
Sulayman (Solomon), Yunus (Jonah), Uzcir (Ezra),
Yahya (J OHN the Baptist), Yaqub (Jacob), and
Yusuf (Joseph). Although revelations appear to be
plural (even if only by virtue of inevitable errors in
transmission by earlier human communities), the
prophets in Islam arc all understood to be equal,
with no difference between one and another (Q
2:135-140; 2:285). Belief in the prophets without
distinction brings reward (Q 4:152).

Female figures with some of the “prophetic"
gifts deserve some mention here. Mary, mother of
Jesus, is the only female figure to have a chapter
of the Quran named for her (Q 19). She does not
fully fit the category' of prophet, which otherwise
seems a completely male category. She does, how-
ever, receive divine messages via an angelic mes-
senger of the “word of God” ( kalimat Allah), which
God breathes into her in the divine conception of
Jesus (Q 3:45; 4:171). She is credited in Islam with
extraordinary' holiness, herself immaculately con-
ceived, and is a “rcceiver/transmitter” of the “Word
of God" via her son, Jesus. However, she has no pro-
phetic ministry; she does not bring a new religion,

'CsS^

560 prophets and prophethood

The Tree of the Prophets, showing Adam at the base
of the trunk and Muhammad at the top, just under the
moon, which proclaims God as the light of heaven and
Earth. The lower trunk and branches include prophets
mentioned in the Quran, while the upper branches
have leaves bearing the names of the first four caliphs.

nor is she a law-bringer. There is a history of theo-
logical debate about her status, and the question of
the possibility of a woman being a prophet. For the
Shia, Fatima al-Zahra ("the Radiant ’), the historic
mother of Muhammad’s only male descendants
(Hasan and Husayn) attains an almost transcendent
theological role as Fatima Fatir ("Creator,” one of
the divine attributes), the cosmic progenetrix of the
Imams. In the Shii tradition (whether Twelver or
Ismaili) theologically she occupies a role similar to
Mary for the Sunni tradition, the indirect vehicle/
receiver of divine “revelation."

Prophethood ( nubuwwa ) is a fundamental
aspect of Islamic teaching and belief, as reflected
in the shahada , which declares Muhammad God’s
messenger ( rasul Allah). It is understood in Islamic
tradition to have a variety of associative qualities
and attributes. A prophet (1) is divinely elected;
(2) possesses knowledge of the unseen (al-ghayb)
through divine inspiration ( wahy ) and dream
visions ( ruya)\ (3) is often rejected and persecuted
by his own people; (4) has extraordinary moral vir-
tue or sinlessness (isma), which still allows human
fault, but not intentional wrongdoing; (5) displays
truthfulness and probity, thus his leadership can be
trusted (as in Muhammad’s nickname, at- Amin, the
trustworthy) and the revelations he brings cannot
be doubted; (6) is simultaneously a warner of the
coming Judgment Day and a bringer of glad tidings
(Q 6:48) about the blessings of the AFTERLIFE; and
(7) stands as a witness (shahid) to God of the righ-
teousness of his community on Judgment Day.

Individual prophets can also have special gifts
from God that function as “signs” (sing. AYA) and
"proofs" (bayyinat) in support ol their prophetic
mission. Some signs are supernatural or miraculous
abilities, like Solomon's command of the winds and
the jinn (Q 34:12-13; 38:34-39), Moses's magical
ability to overcome the Pharaohs priests (for exam-
ple^ 7:104-126; 20:65-73), and Jesus’s extraordi-
nary healing abilities and power to animate a bird
made of clay and raise the dead (Q 3:49). Other
prophetic qualities are interior principles, such as
Abraham's being h an if (a pre-Islamic monotheist)
and fell alii Allah (the "friend of God," Q 4:125);
Moses’s quality of near communion with God at
the burning bush, making him kalim Allah ("one
to whom God spoke,” Q 4:164); and Muhammad's
being regarded as both the lover and beloved of
God ( habib Allah) by later Islamic tradition.

Prophecy is said to be kin to illumination,
as Gods essence is light, and He sheds that light
on the world through revelation (Q 24:35). In
HADITH and mystical literature, Muhammad and
the Shii Imams are said to be composed of divine
light (nur muhammadi) or to be a pillar of light

562 purity and impurity

behavior recommended in the Quran and Sunna.
For example, quranic verses 24:30-31 call upon
men and women to “lower their gaze" away from
objects of sexual desire. Purdah practices in the
subcontinent are mostly concentrated among
members of the upper classes, thus frequently
indicating elevated social status. It is important
to note that practices of purdah vary significantly
according to the surrounding social and cultural
milieu, and they must be understood within their
specific historical and cultural contexts.

See also harem; veil.

Aysha A. Hidayatullah

Further reading: Sitara Khan. A Glimpse through
Purdah: Asian Women — the Myth and the Reality (Staf-
fordshire, England: Trentham Books, 1999); Ruby
Lai, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005);
Hanna Papanek, "Purdah: Separate Worlds and Sym-
bolic Shelter.' In Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah
in South Asia , edited by Hanna Papanek and Gail
Minault, 3—53. (Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books,
1982).

purity and impurity See ablutions; circumci-
sion; DIETARY LAWS; HALAL.

Qadari School See Mutazili School; theology.
qadi See crime and punishment; f/qh; sharia.

Qadiri Sufi Order

The Qadiri tar/qa is one of the oldest and most
widespread of the Sufi orders. It is named after
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, a pious Hanbali jurist
who lived in Baghdad in the 11th and 12th centu-
ries. Abd al-Qadir was a Sufi ascetic and popular
preacher, but he did not establish a formal Sufi
organization in his lifetime. The development of
the order that bears his name occurred in the cen-
turies after his death, beginning with the efforts of
his sons and other followers in Iraq, with Bagh-
dad as the center of their activity. A 14th-century
biography credits his sons with spreading the
Qadiri order throughout Islamdom, but it is more
likely that it did not really begin to spread until
the 14th century. Stories about Abd al-Qadir's
miraculous powers gained wide circulation. Indi-
vidual Qadiri shaykhs trained disciples, drawing
from the teachings, meditation techniques, and
ritual practices that were in circulation among
other Sufi groups. Eventually the order acquired
a more formal hierarchy and system of rituals

and techniques, but it retained enough flexibility
to adapt to different cultural environments. It
traced its spiritual genealogy from Abd al-Qadir
back to Muhammad, through Ali bin Abi Talib (d.
661) and a number of other prominent Sufis and
descendants of Muhammad's household.

The first branches outside of Iraq may have
been in Syria, Egypt, and Yemen, and the Mongol
invasions of the 13th and 15th centuries prob-
ably helped the order spread eastward to Iran,
Afghanistan, and India and westward to North
Africa. The first branches in India were in the
northwest and the Deccan, and they were favored
by Muslim ruling elites in cities and towns.
Among the most prominent Indian Qadiris were
Muhammad Ghawth of Uchch (d. 1517), credited
with introducing the order in India, and Miyan
Mir (d. 1635), who was attributed with healing
powers and claimed to be in spiritual contact
with Abd al-Qadir. He later became the teacher of
the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh (d. 1659), who
was deeply interested in both Muslim and Hindu
mysticism. The Qadiris also established branches
in Central Asia, China, and Southeast Asia, where
they still exist. In Iraq the Ottoman Turks lavishly
restored the shrine of Abd al-Qadir in 1535, but
the order did not found any hospices in Istanbul,
the Ottoman capital, until the 17th century. From

563

-4SS5D

564 al-Qaida

there they established branches in Anatolia and
southeastern Europe. In 1925 the new republican
government of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938)
officially banned the Qadiri order, as well as all
other tariqas, in Turkey. To the west, the Qadiris
spread from Morocco southward into Mauritania
and West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Among the most prominent members to arise
in that region were al-Mukhtar ibn Ahmad al-
Kunti (d. 181 1), a revered teacher and saint who
inspired Usman Dan Fodio (d. 1817), the founder
of the Sokoto Caliphate in Nigeria. The most
famous Algerian Qadiri leader was Abd al-Qadir
al-J izairi (d. 1883), who led the resistance against
French colonial expansion in North Africa until
he surrendered in 1847. In the early 20th century
a Turkish Qadiri branch joined with a branch of
the Rifai Sufi Order to form the Qadiri-Rifai Sufi
Order, which now has branches in North America,
Bosnia, and Australia.

See also asceticism; Hanbali Legal School;
Ottoman dynasty; Sufism.

Further reading: Bradford G. Martin, Muslim Brother-
hoods in 19th Century Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003); S. A. A. Rizvi, A History
of Sufism in India. 2 vols. (New Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal, 1978-1983); J. Spencer Trimingham, The
Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1971).

al-Qaida (also al-Qaeda; Arabic: the base,
foundation)

The most infamous of the radical Islamic organiza-
tions to emerge in the late 20th/carly 21st century
is al-Qaida. It gained worldwide notoriety for the
suicide attacks conducted by 19 of its members
against the World Trade Center in New York City
and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on Sep-
tember 11, 2001, that resulted in the immediate
deaths of 2,974 civilians and rescue workers, plus
countless other victims in the United States and
abroad in the aftermath of the attacks. The effects

of this catastrophe were still being felt globally
nearly a decade later.

Al-Qaida's beginnings date back to the mid-
1980s amidst the chaos caused by the Soviet
Unions 1979 occupation of Afghanistan and
the civil war that ensued there when the Soviets
finally left in 1989. Al-Qaida s founding members
were drawn from young Arab volunteers who
wanted to assist the Afghan Mujahidin in their
fight against the Soviet military and its Afghan
communist allies. They created the Arab Mujahi-
din Services Bureau (Maktab al-khadamat iTl-muja -
hidin al-Arab, MAK) in 1984, based in Peshawar,
Pakistan. Its leaders were Usama bin Ladin (b.
1957), one of the wealthy sons of Muhammad bin
Ladin (1906-67), Saudi Arabia's leading building
contractor, and Ayman al-Zawahiri (b. 1951), a
surgeon who came from a prominent Egyptian
family of doctors, politicians, and scholars. Al-
Zawahiri was a leader in the Jihad Group that had
assassinated Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat
in 1981; in the 1980s he was seeking to recon-
stitute the group in exile after serving time in
prison. Bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri had both been
inspired by the radical Islamic ideology of Sayyid
Qutb (d. 1966), a leading member of the Muslim
Brotherhood who had been executed in 1966 for
conspiring against Egyptian president Jamal Abd
al-Nasir (r. 1953-70). Another person who had
greatly influenced the Arab Mujahidin , especially
bin Ladin, was Abd Allah Azzam (1941-89), a
charismatic Palestinian member of the Muslim
Brotherhood and an advocate of global jihad and
martyrdom. He had first met bin Ladin while
serving as imam at the King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud
University mosque in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, dur-
ing the early 1980s. He subsequently became an
effective recruiter of Arab volunteers to fight in
Afghanistan.

The Afghan Mujahidin and their Arab allies,
funded by Saudi Arabia and the United States
through the Pakistani intelligence agency (1SI),
considered the Soviet withdrawal from Afghani-
stan a God-given victory. The Arab jihadists, who

al-Qaida 565

had set up a training camp in Afghanistan during
the war against the Soviets, dreamed of creating
an Islamic state, but their hopes were dashed
when civil war erupted among the heavily armed
Afghan guerrilla factions. In August 1988 Azzam,
bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri, and fellow Arab jihad-
ists secretly met to form what they called “the
Military Base" (al-qaida al-askariyya ), an armed
organization that evolved into the international
terrorist group that attacked the United States in
2001. Bin Ladin was considered a hero by many
young Saudis, but he was regarded with suspicion
by Saudi authorities. In particular they were con-
cerned about his opposition to the large influx of
U.S. forces into Saudi Arabia at the time of the
1990 Gulf War against Iraq. As a consequence of
Saudi opposition, al-Qaida's chief base of opera-
tions shifted from Afghanistan to Sudan in 1992
at the invitation of the new Islamist government
that had established itself there in a 1989 coup.
Al-Qaida had limited success in Sudan, although
it was in this period that bin Ladin began to
publicize his hatred for the “Crusader-Jcwish
alliance" and the House of Saud. Under pres-
sure from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United
States, the Sudanese government expelled bin
Ladin and associates from the country in 1996.
Al-Qaida returned to Afghanistan, where it found
safe haven under the auspices of the Taliban, a
group of young militants who were emerging as
the most dominant of the factions fighting in the
Afghan civil war. The close relationship between
the Taliban and al-Qaida lasted until 200 1 , when a
U.S. -led international coalition invaded the coun-
try as a consequence of this relationship and its
connection with the 9/11 attacks. Until that time,
al-Qaidas encampments in Afghanistan provided
training in guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics to
thousands of young jihadists coming mainly from
the Middle East and Asia.

The ideology espoused by al-Qaida‘s leader-
ship was drawn essentially from two sources:
(1) the anti-Western jihadism of Sayyid Qutb as
interpreted by Azzam and al-Zawahiri, and (2)

the puritanical reformism of Muhammad ibn Abd
al-Wahhab (d. 1791). The first formed in reaction
to the secular authoritarianism of Abd al-Nasir’s
Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s, the second in
conjunction with the establishment of Saudi rule
in the Arabian Peninsula, together with funding
made possible by that country's vast oil revenues.
The radical agenda of al-Qaida seeks the establish-
ment of Islamic government based on the sharia
through an elite vanguard of true believers engag-
ing in jihad. However, its leaders have called upon
all Muslims to participate in this struggle. Al-Qai-
da's ideology has been further shaped by the per-
ception that it was Islam that had brought about
the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan and that
it would ultimately triumph over its remaining
enemies, especially the United Slates and Israel.
The public declarations of bin Ladin and al-Zawa-
hiri also list specific grievances for which they
seek revenge. These include the corruption and
immorality of the Saudis and other pro-U.S. rul-
ers, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the 1982
Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the stationing of U.S.
troops in the land of Islam's two holy mosques (in
Mecca and Medina), the deaths of Iraqi civilians
caused by the U.S. -led embargo of the 1990s, and,
most recently, the U.S. -led occupation of Iraq.

Al-Qaida is a loosely knit organization, lik-
ened to clusters of grapes, a business consortium,
or a network. Funded by governments and private
donors, it disseminates its ideas through the Inter-
net and has had some success in recruiting fol-
lowers at the grass-roots level. Its organizational
structure and outreach program have allowed it
to operate on a global scale and elude detection
of its centers of operation by American and other
intelligence agencies. Although its exact size is
impossible to gauge at this time, it is known to
have gained its recruits from a volatile mix of
idealistic young Muslims, drifters, and militant
opponents of pro-U.S. governments such as Saudi
Arabia, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from
Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 attacks were preceded

566 al-Qaida

by coordinated suicide bombings (seen as an al-
Qaida trademark) against the American embas-
sies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, and
against the USS Cole , a destroyer docked in the
Yemeni port of Aden, in October 2000. After the
U.S.-led coalition's 2003 invasion of Iraq, young
Sunnis from various countries were recruited to
form the “al-Qaida in Mesopotamia Group," a
jihadist guerrilla organization under the leader-
ship of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (1966-2006),
a Jordanian militant who had been marginally
involved in the Afghan jihad. This group, though
small in size, attacked U.S. troops and is suspected
of having fomented Sunni-Shii conflict through a
campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations,
causing many civilian casualties. It also claimed
responsibility for the bombing of a luxury hotel
in Amman, Jordan, in 2005. Although Zarqawi
is known to have been in communication with
al-Zawahiri, there is no evidence of a direct chain-
of-command connection between the two organi-
zations. In addition, deadly public transportation
bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2006
were allegedly conducted by local al-Qaida cells,
but no direct connection has been established.
Most likely they were carried out by individuals
who had been inspired by al-Qaidas propaganda.
A group called al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghrib,
which appears to be a spin-off from the Armed
Islamic Group, has conducted bombings in Alge-
ria to deadly effect since 2006. Al-Qaida has also
been linked to terrorist attacks in Indonesia and
the Philippines.

Al-Qaidas notoriety and continued existence
has generated much controversy around the world
between Muslims and non-Muslims, and among
Muslims themselves, about the nature of its rela-
tion to Islam. Even though more is now known
about the organization than in the past, a body of
politicians, scholars, religious leaders, and edito-
rialists persists in equating its ideology and use of
violence with Islam as a whole, both in the distant
past and in the current post-cold war period. This
understanding has had an impact on policymak-

ing, security measures, and military planning
domestically and internationally. The chief defect
in this line of thought is that it overlooks both
the great diversity of forms Islam has assumed
historically as well as the widespread rejection
of al-Qaidas ideology and tactics by govern-
ments of Muslim-majority countries and ordinary
Muslims. Another group of politicians, scholars,
religious leaders, and editorialists has persisted
in minimizing or denying any connection with
Islam at all. While this denial may help temporar-
ily deflect criticism and suspicion from Islam and
Muslims, the vast majority of whom have nothing
to do with al-Qaida and its spin-offs, it neverthe-
less fails to give serious consideration to the fact
that al-Qaidas leaders and membership believe
themselves to actually be good Muslims seek-
ing to defend Islam and the wider Muslim VMM A
from their enemies. Between the two extremes of
polemics and apologetics there arc more balanced
understandings that are conducive to a better
assessment of the nature of Islamic radicalism,
the actual threat al-Qaida poses, and how to best
proceed to counteract that threat. The report of
the 9/1 1 Commission, for example, found, “most
Muslims prefer a peaceful and inclusive vision of
their faith . . . [and] are repelled by mass murder
and barbarism whatever their justification.” But it
also concluded that bin Ladin and other Islamists
“draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance
within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition)"
that was “further fed by grievances stressed by
bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim
world.”

See also Abd al-Rahman, Umar; Arab-Israeli
conflicts; Europe; Gulf Wars; Islamism; jihad
movements; pan-Islamism; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda:
Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press. 2002); Raymond Ibrahim. The Al Qaeda
Reader (New York: Random House, 2007); National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United
States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report (New

al-Quds 569

Jerusalem. In a parallel manner, Christian churches
were built with the altar on the eastern side, ori-
ented toward the rising sun. Such practices are still
common among Orthodox Jews and Christians.

Islamic accounts differ about which direction
Muhammad prayed when he still lived in Mecca
before the Hijra to Medina in 622. Some say he
faced toward the Kaaba, others say that he faced
toward Syria (probably Jerusalem). Later sources
tried to reconcile these two different accounts by
saying that he prayed on the south side of the
Kaaba facing northward, which allowed him to
face both that shrine and Jerusalem at once. The
decisive moment, however, came after the emigra-
tion to Medina, where the first qibla recognized
by the new Muslim community was Jerusalem.
Then, perhaps as a result of the failure of Jews in
Medina to recognize Muhammad as their prophet,
the following revelation was received: "Therefore
we shall turn you toward a qibla that will please
you. Turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque;
wherever you may be, turn your face toward it”
(Q 2:144). At this point in their early history,
Muslims began to make a clear break with Jews
and Christians, setting the course for Islam's
emergence as a distinct religious tradition. Later
commentators maintained that in changing the
prayer direction Muhammad was simply return-
ing to the original qibla of Abraham.

The Quran, together with the hadith and
community consensus, established the Kaaba as
the qibla for Islam. In theory, therefore, as con-
quest, trade, and travel took Muslims far away
from Mecca, the qibla lines of orientation from all
directions would converge at one point in Mecca,
as long as one allowed for the curvature of the
earth. In reality, however, qibla directions varied,
even within the same city, like medieval Cairo.
The qibla of the Great Mosque in Cordoba, Spain,
faced south rather than southeast. This may have
been because the builders were emulating the qibla
of the Umayyad Caliphate (r. 661-750) far to the
east in Damascus, Syria, where mosques face to the
southward to Mecca. Orientation of other mosques

may be affected by the natural or urban landscape,
or imprecise mathematical calculations. Despite,
and perhaps because of, such variations, and with
the benefit of advances in mathematics and science
between the ninth and 14th centuries, Muslim
astronomers and geographers went to great lengths
to calculate the exact qibla from a given locality.
Syrian astronomer Shams al-Din al-Khalili (14th
century) finally found the trigonometric formula
for determining the exact qibla from any longitude
and latitude on the surface of the earth, and qibla
compasses were developed soon thereafter. Based
on these methods, Muslims living in the mainland
United States and Canada have determined that
their prayer direction is to the northeast.

Muslims have consulted each other and reli-
gious scholars to determine the qibla when they
are not in a mosque. Now they are posting signs
and using modern devices to do this, too. Hotel
rooms in some Muslim countries have signs indi-
cating the prayer direction, and satellite-guided
qibla compasses can be found on passenger air-
craft, such as those owned by Saudi Arabian Air-
lines. Qibla compasses arc also widely available for
purchase, and they can be programmed in digital
watches, cellular phones, and computers.

See also funerary rituals.

Further reading: David A. King, "Architecture and
Astronomy: The Ventilators of Medieval Cairo and
Their Secrets," Journal of the American Oriental Society

104. no. 1 (1984): 97-133; , Astronomy in the

Service of Islam (Aldershot, England: Varorium, 1993);
Nuba N. N. Khoury, "The Mihrab: From Text to Form,"
International Journal oj Middle East Studies 30 (1998):
1-27; F. E. Peters. Muhammad and the Origins of Islam
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994),
207-209.

qiyas See fiqh.

al-Quds See Jerusalem.

Quran 571

verses that vary in length from one letter (Q 50:1)
or word (Q 89:1) to several sentences (Q 5:40).
All chapters but one (Q 9) begin with the BASMALA,
a liturgical citation of God's name, but only in the
first sura is it counted as a verse. Other oft-cited
verses in the Quran have also acquired their own
names, such as the Throne Verse (Q 2:255), the
Light Verse (Q 24:35), and the Sword Verse (Q
9:5). Verses in the shorter chapters, many of them
counted among the early revelations received by
Muhammad, often share an end-rhyming pattern
of prose known as saj, but in the longer chapters
they usually do not rhyme. The physical divisions
between verses arc usually marked by circles or
florets in Quran manuscripts, but in modern print
editions they are numbered due to the influence of
the modern Euro-American practice of numbering
verses in print editions of the Bible.

Manuscript and print editions of the Quran
also show other kinds of organization. One of
these is to distinguish chapters revealed when
Muhammad lived in Mecca (610-622 c.E.) from
those associated with the Medinan phase of his
career (622-632 c.e). The classification of Meccan
and Medinan suras can usually be found at the
head of each sura, next to its title. However, Mus-
lim commentators and jurists have also recognized
that a chapter classified as Medinan may contain
Meccan verses in it, which suggests editing of the
quranic text at some time after it was first com-
posed. To facilitate memorization and recitation
of the entire Quran, Muslims have also divided it
into 30 portions (sing, juz) of equal length, which
they have further subdivided into two equal parts
(sing. hizb). The markings for these divisions
can be found in Quran manuscripts and in most
printed editions in Arabic.

Muslims believe that the Quran, the speech
of God, provides guidance in all matters of faith,
action, and the attainment of eternal salvation. In
support of this belief, the Quran declares.

That is the book in which there is no doubt,

a proper guide for those who fear God, who

believe in the unseen, perform prayer, and
disburse (in charity) what he has granted to
them. (It is the book) of those who believe in
what has been revealed to you (Muhammad),
what was revealed before you, and who are
certain about the hereafter. They are the ones
who are guided rightly by their lord and who
are prosperous. (Q 2:2-5)

The Quran's leading theme is the declaration
that there is only one all-powerful, all-knowing,
and merciful God (Allah) who alone created the
universe and governs all that is in it. Another
theme is that as the creator of human beings, God
makes his will known to them through signs and
revelations delivered by prophets sent throughout
history in order to guide them to salvation and
warn them away from damnation. The Quran
tells this religious history by referring to biblical
stories about figures such as Abraham, Joseph,
Moses, David, and Jesus and how their communi-
ties, called the People of the Book, often rejected
them. In doing so it placed Muhammad directly or
indirectly among these former prophets and iden-
tified its message with theirs. Indeed, Muslims
have regarded the Quran as the culmination of
these earlier revelations, correcting the errors that
people have introduced to them. In addition to
biblical figures, the Quran also mentions Arabian
prophets such as Salih (Q 7:73-79) and Shuayb
(Q 7:84-93).

In the Quran the theme of salvation is linked
to the idea that human beings arc divided into
believers and disbelievers, the righteous and the
wrongdoers, who arc all to be held accountable
for their beliefs and actions at the end of the
world on Judgment Day, when all the dead will
be resurrected. Those judged to be among the
righteous will be rewarded with a blissful life in
paradise, and sinners will suffer the agonies of
the hell-fire. The Quran provides graphic descrip-
tions of the blessings and punishments that
people will receive in the afterlife, and, like the
Bible, it also gives an accounting of the rewards

-4=5=5

572 Quran

and punishments people have experienced in
history because of their belief or disbelief. In
several chapters linked to the Medinan period of
Muhammad's life, the Quran calls upon believers
to fight “in the path of God" against disbeliev-
ers and People of the Book opposed to them,
which has led non-Muslims to conclude that
violence and hatred are significant themes in the
Quran. Although some Muslims have chosen to
interpret their scripture in this limited way, it is
also important to point out that many Muslims
do not accept this understanding, pointing to
verses that uphold the values of peaceful coex-
istence and acceptance of religious and cultural
differences. Moreover, some modern commenta-
tors and reformers have argued that the more
militant verses in the Quran pertained only to
specific circumstances faced by Muhammad and
his small community in their struggle for survival
in Medina, and that they were not intended to be
universally applicable.

The themes of God's oneness, revelation,
prophecy, individual accountability, and the Last
Judgment would mean little if they were not
connected to a code of ethics and morality that
links individuals to society. The Quran calls upon
people to perform acts of charity, especially for
orphans and the needy, and oppose greed, oppres-
sion, and wrongdoing. It also affirms family life
by legislating on matters of marriage, ADULTERY,
divorce, and inheritance. The pre-lslamic Ara-
bian practice of slaying infant girls was prohib-
ited, as was usury and gambling. The Quran also
provides rules governing worship, lawful and
prohibited food and drink, relations with non-
Muslims, as well as the division of the spoils of
war. Although the number of legislative verses,
found mainly in the Medinan suras, is small in
comparison with nonlegislative ones, the Quran
is one of the fundamental “roots" of the sharia,
or Islamic law.

The Quran's accounts of prophets before
Muhammad attribute miraculous signs to them.
It states that people of Muhammad's time chal-

lenged him to produce similar wonders, to which
the Quran replies, “Is it not sufficient that we
have revealed to you (Muhammad) the book that
is recited to them? In that there is a mercy and
reminder for a people who believe" (Q 29: 50-
51). From this and similar declarations the ulama
developed the doctrine of the Quran's miraculous
nature, or inimitability (ijaz). They said it was
miraculous because its language and style could
not be replicated in ordinary human speech, its
chapters and verses were uniquely arranged, it
spoke of past and future events of which Muham-
mad had no knowledge, it revealed God's names
and attributes, its laws and commandments were
universal in application, and, unlike other holy
BOOKS, it has remained unaltered since it was
revealed to Muhammad. Some Muslims today
assert that the Quran also speaks to modern
scientific theories, such as those concerning the
origin of the universe and the genetic code. Such
beliefs have been contested by non-Muslims and
Euro-American scholars, as well as skeptical
Muslims. Nevertheless, the consensus reached by
many Muslims through the ages has been that the
Quran is Muhammad's chief miracle and proof of
the truth of his prophethood.

Belief in the Quran's miraculous nature, taken
together with a desire to place its origins on a par
with Jewish belief in the revelation of the Torah on
Mt. Sinai and Christian belief in Jesus as the word
of God incarnate, has inspired the belief held by
many Muslims that the angel Gabriel revealed the
entire Quran to Muhammad on the Night of Des-
tiny ( laylat al-qadr), one of the last nights in the
month of Ramadan. This belief, not stated by the
Quran itself, is in tension with the view endorsed
by Islamic historical sources that the Quran
was revealed piecemeal during Muhammad's life,
between 610 c.E. and 632 C.E., and that it was col-
lected into a physical book (mushaf) only after his
death. Early commentaries and Islamic historical
sources support this understanding of the Quran's
early development, although they are unclear in
other respects. They report that the third caliph,

Quran 573

Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644-656) ordered a com-
mittee headed by Zayd ibn Thabit (d. ca. 655),
Muhammad’s scribe, to establish a single authori-
tative recension of the Quran. Uthman reportedly
had divergent versions, which were being used in
different parts of the early Muslim community,
destroyed. To avoid disputes, everyone was to use
a single version of the Quran, known as the Uth-
manic codex, its technical name, which Muslims
believe to be the canonical version used today.
The first copies were sent from Medina to the
cities of Mecca, Damascus, Basra, and Kufa (the
latter two are in Iraq).

Islamic sources indicate that during Muham-
mad's lifetime his Companions had both memo-
rized the revelations and written them on palm
branches, stone tablets, and the shoulder blades
of animals. They also state that there was a pre-
Uthmanic version of the Quran in the hands of
his predecessor Abu Bakr (r. 632-634), which
had been collected out of a concern that the
verses would be lost or forgotten when Muham-
mad's Companions died. Abu Bakr's copy was
passed on to Hafsa, one of Muhammad's widows
and daughter of the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab
(r. 634-644). This was probably one of the main
copies used in the creation of Uthman’s codex.
Nevertheless, evidence from coins, early inscrip-
tions, and texts tells us that there continued to
be non-Uthmanic versions of the Quran circulat-
ing in the Muslim community after the seventh
century. A 10th-century source (Abu Dawud
al-Sijistani, d. 929) indicates that there were
as many as 28 codices at that time. Moreover,
because early Arabic manuscripts of the Quran
were often written without vowels and markings
to differentiate consonants, variant “readings" of
the Uthmanic codex arose in the far-flung lands
of the Arab Muslim empire. At the apex of the
Abbasid Caliphate (10th century), the consensus
was that there were seven authorized readings.
The standard edition printed today was first
published in 1923 in Cairo; it is based on the
eighth-century “reading" of Kufa in Iraq. The

numbering of verses in the Cairo edition has
become the standard for most modern printings
of the Quran.

The Quran holds a place of primary impor-
tance in the history of Islam and in the daily life
of Muslims. It is considered a foundational docu-
ment in matters of education, law, theology, and
history. Children begin their religious education
by learning how to read and recite it in Arabic,
believed the unadulterated language of God's
revelation. All Muslims must memorize short
chapters of the Quran in order to perform their
daily prayers. Some choose to memorize the entire
book. The ulama have had to go even greater
lengths to gain advanced levels of expertise in its
language and rhetoric. Indeed, a work of religious
scholarship would be considered inadequate if it
were to omit quranic quotations. Consequently,
a sizeable body of literature about the Quran has
been produced through the centuries by ulama
working in the major centers of Islamic learning.
Perhaps the most important genre of writings con-
cerning the Quran is that of TAFSIR, or scriptural
exegesis. This Islamic “science" has helped Mus-
lims both maintain the integrity of Gods revela-
tions in their original language and make them a
part of their lives in times and places quite distant
from seventh-century Arabia, even in modern
Europe and the Americas.

The artful recitation of the Quran, known
as tajwid and tartil, is another way in which the
Quran has been incorporated into the life of the
Muslim community. The Quran can be recited
by individuals in order to gain divine blessing
(baraka) and forgiveness, but recitations arc also
performed on formal occasions such as at large
assemblies and during funerals and mourning
rites. Quran reciters can attain a reputation com-
parable to that of opera stars, and several coun-
tries hold national Quran recital competitions.
Recorded recitations of the Quran are available
in all the electronic media, making it possible
for Muslims to listen to them at home, work, or
while traveling. In addition to artful recitation,

574 Quraysh

the Quran is also quoted in Friday sermons,
and quranic phrases have even entered everyday
speech, especially in countries where Arabic is the
native language.

Complementing the art of recitation is that of
calligraphy. Great care was taken in rendering the
sacred text of the Quran in writing. The cursive
Arabic script lends itself to a wide variety of forms
and styles, from the simplest to the most complex,
as is evident in the countless Quran manuscripts
that have been produced through the centuries.
Prior to the modern period the most magnificent
manuscripts were created by professional calligra-
phers at the behest of rulers and wealthy patrons.
Although today most people have printed editions
of the Quran, small numbers of handwritten copies
of the Quran continue to be produced. During the
Middle Ages the calligraphic rendering of verses
and chapters from the Quran was carried from the
medium of paper to that of architecture. Beauti-
ful quranic inscriptions can still be seen on great
Islamic monuments in Egypt, Palestine, Turkey,
Iran, Central Asia, and India. Examples are the
mosques of al-AZHAR and Sultan Hasan in Cairo,
the DOME of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Sultan
Ahmad and Suleymaniye mosques of Istanbul, the
Shaykh Lutfallah Mosque of Isfahan, the Tilakari
madrasa of Samarkand, the Qutb Minar of Delhi,
and Agra's Taj Mahal. Quranic calligraphy contin-
ues to be an important part of modern mosque
design, too. Muslims also place artfully rendered
verses from the Quran in the form of posters and
wall hangings in their homes, schools, places of
work, and even cars and trucks. Copies of the
entire mushaf can be found displayed in these
locations, although sometimes it is kept in a color-
ful box for protection from the elements.

See also almsgiving; amulets and talismans;
Arabian religions, pre-1slamic; Arabic language
and literature; books and bookmaking; kafir ;

PROPHETS AND PROPHECY.

Further reading: Farid Esack, The Quran: A Users Guide
(Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005); Jane Dam-

men McAuliffe, ed.. The Cambridge Companion to the
Quran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006);
Kristina Nelson, “The Sound of the Divine in Every-
day Life." In Everyday Life in the Middle East , edited
by Donna Lee Bowen and Evelyn A. Early, 257-261
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Abu
Ammaar Yasir Qadhi, An Introduction to the Sciences of
the Quran (Birmingham, England: Al-Hidaayah Pub-
lishing and Distribution, 1999); Fazlur Rahman, Major
Themes of the Quran (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica,
1980); Michael Sells, Approaching the Quran: The Early
Revelations (Ashland. Orcg.: While Cloud Press, 1999);
W. Montgomery Watt and Richard Bell, Introduction to
the Quran (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press,
1970).

Quraysh

The tribe that dominated Mecca when Muham-
mad (ca. 570-632) was born was the Quraysh.
It was composed of 10 main clans. The Banu
Hashim clan was the one to which Muham-
mad belonged. Another clan, the Abd Shams,
was more wealthy and powerful. Both branches
played very important roles in the first centuries
of Islamic history.

The Quraysh profited from control of the holy
sites in Mecca and the caravans that traveled to
Yemen and Syria. They were also responsible for
taking care of pilgrims who came to worship at
the Kaaba, the leading temple in Mecca. Muslim
historians claimed that the Quraysh were descen-
dants of Abraham and Ishmael, the builders of the
Kaaba. According to these accounts, the Quraysh
became dispersed for about seven centuries after
the time of Ishmael. Qusayy, one of Muhammad's
ancestors, reunited the tribe in Mecca. He claimed
the right to take care of the Kaaba and feed and
water pilgrims. In the history of religions it is very
common for a particular family or clan to be in
charge of operating holy places, and Mecca was
no exception. When Qusayy died, his sons took
control and divided the city into quarters in which
the different tribes and clans were to reside. One

qutb 575

of his grandsons, Hashim, was Muhammad's great
grandfather. He was known for his involvement in
the caravan trade and was responsible for provid-
ing food and drink to pilgrims. His descendants
are called the Banu Hashim, the sons of Hashim.
Muhammad's grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, fol-
lowed in his father's footsteps, but he was also said
to have been involved in organizing a successful
defense of Mecca when it was threatened by an
army from Yemen. This event was mentioned
in sura 105 of the Quran, entitled Al-Fil (The
Elephant) because these animals were used in
the army of the invaders. Abd al-Muttalib is also
remembered for having discovered the sacred well
of Zamzam, next to the Kaaba.

The Quraysh gave Muhammad his first con-
verts and his first opponents. They also partici-
pated in the founding of the Islamicate civilization
that flourished in lands between the Atlantic
Ocean and eastern Iran during the Middle Ages.
In the Quran they were included among both the
believers (muminun) who arc promised paradise
and the disbelievers (kafirun) who arc threatened
with damnation. The first four caliphs to suc-
ceed Muhammad as leaders of the community,
known as the Rashidan, were all of the Quraysh:
Abu Bakr (r. 632-634), Umar ibn al-Khattab (r.
634-644), Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644-655), and
Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 655-661). Leading women in
Muhammad's life were from the same tribe — his
wives Khadija, Hafsa, and Aisha. Most of the Emi-
grants who participated in the Hijra in 622 were
from the Quraysh. Moreover, according to the
Quran commentaries, the Arabic language of the
Quran was said to have been in their dialect. The
members of Muhammad's family who are consid-
ered the ideal Imams by the Shia are, of course,
also members of the Banu Hashim clan. On the
other hand, powerful members of the Abd Shams
persecuted Muhammad and his followers. They
plotted against his life, organized armies to fight
him after he took up residence in Medina, and
prevented him and his followers from fulfilling
their pilgrimage obligations. In 630 the leader of

the Abd Shams, Abu Sufyan (d. 653), converted
to Islam and surrendered Mecca to Muhammad
and his army, allowing the holy city to be taken
peacefully. Later, the sons of Abu Sufyan and
other members of the Abd Shams clan founded
the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750) in Damas-
cus. This dynasty was eradicated by members
of the Banu Hashim clan who claimed descent
from Muhammad's paternal uncle Abbas. They
established the Abbasid Caliphate that ruled
Islamicate civilization until they were destroyed
by Mongol invaders in 1258. Indeed, according
to medieval Islamic political writings, one of the
qualifications for a person to be CALIPH was that
he be a male of Quraysh descent.

The legacy of the Quraysh lives on today.
All the Sufi orders claim spiritual descent from
Muhammad through either Ali or Abu Bakr.
Many Shii religious authorities are considered to
be blood relatives of Muhammad, which makes
them members of the Banu Hashim. The kings
of Morocco and Jordan claim to be his heirs,
as reflected in the official name of Jordan, which
is called the Hashimite Kingdom. Also, Bedouin
tribes living in the vicinity of Mecca today still
claim to be of the Quraysh.

See also ahl al-bayt; authority; Companions
of the Prophet; fitna ; Hashimite dynasty; kafir;
Shiism; Sufism.

Further reading: Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds,
Gods Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of
Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986);
Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: The
Classical Age of Islam. Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1974); F. E. Peters, Muhammad and the
Origins of Islam (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1994).

Qurtuba See Cordoba.
qutb See wall

Qutb, Sayyid 577

of Qutb’s thought would have been inconceivable
before his time.

Sec also jihad movements; renewal and reform

MOVEMENTS.

Joshua Hoffman

Further reading: John Calvert and William Shepard,
A Child from the Village (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Uni-

versity Press, 2004); Gillcs Kepcl, Muslim Extremism in
Egypt: The Prophet and the Pharaoh. Translated by Jon
Rothschild (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2003); Sayyid Qutb, Milestones. Translated by Ahmad
Zaki Hammad (Indianapolis: American Trust Publica-
tions, 1993); William Shepard, Sayyid Qutb and Islamic
Activism: A Translation and Critical Analysis of Social
Justice in Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996).

Rabia al-Adawiyya (Rabia al-Basriyya,
Rabia al-Qaysiyya) (ca. 717-801) legendary
female Muslim mystic and saint, considered to be one
of the first Sufis

What is known about Rabia al-Adawiyya is culled
from many different hagiographic sources span-
ning several centuries, and it is not easy to sepa-
rate fact from legend. Indeed, Rabias legend has
developed over time, but she is most famous for
her ascetic lifestyle, weeping over her separation
from God, for whom she developed a profound
love.

Born in Basra during the Abbasid era, she was
most likely influenced by her socioreligious milieu.
Basra housed a school for women ascetics at a time
when an impulse for ASCETICISM was increasing.
Basra was also the home of the renowned ascetic
al-HASAN al-Basri (642-728), with whom Rabia
was often associated in legend, although the two
probably never met. However, there is no reason
to doubt the accounts of her contemporary al-
Jahiz (d. 868) regarding her association with other
female mystics and her ascetic lifestyle. According
to some sources, Rabia was a slave of the al-Atik
clan until freed by her master when he recognized
her great spiritual attainment. She then dedicated
her life to the continuous worship of God.

It is interesting to note the different ways in
which Rabias figure has been constructed and
reinterpreted over the centuries, as those who
told her stories shaped and reshaped her legacy.
For example, al-Jahizs stories of Rabia simply
portrayed a self-denying ascetic from his com-
munity, who was known for refusing all worldly
things. Her love was for God alone; she would
not marry, nor let the promise of paradise or
fear of the Fire distract her from him. Approxi-
mately four hundred years later the Persian mystic
Farid al-Din Attar depicted Rabia as possessing
miraculous powers and a biting wit, in addition
to her deep piety. In one story he described her
as capable of flying in the sky on her carpel, and
in another as illuminating the darkness with her
fingers, which one night shone like lanterns.
When she was making a pilgrimage to Mecca,
the Kaaba miraculously came to her. She was also
often credited for her sarcastic rebukes of male
disciples for being too worldly. A 1963 Egyptian
film portrayed her as a beautiful young slave girl
forced to perform Oriental dances by her master,
but she then discovered God and dedicated her
life to preaching and PRAYER. The famed Egyptian
vocalist Umm KULTHOUM (d. 1975) recorded the
songs for this movie. More recently, the Egyptian

578

Rahman, Fazlur 579

feminist writer Leila Ahmed has depicted her as a
social rebel whose example has inspired Muslim
women to free themselves from the limitations of
their biological roles, and whose legend reflects
countercultural understandings of gender.

Her devotees believe that her tomb is located
on Jerusalems Mount of Olives in a 17th-century
mosque near a church that memorializes the place
of Jesus's ascent into heaven. A modern mosque
named in her honor has been built in a suburb of
Cairo, Egypt.

See also Abbasid Caliphate; slavery; Sufism.

Sophia Pandya

Further reading: Annemarie Schimmel, My Soul Is a
Woman. Translated by Susan H. Ray (New York: Con-
tinuum International Publishing Group, 1997), 34-37;
Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran,
Mi raj, Poetic, and Theological Writings (Mahwah, N.J.:
Pa u list Press, 1996), 151-170; Margaret Smith, The Life
and Work oj Rabia and Other Women Mystics in Islam
(1928. Reprint, Oxford: Oncworld Publications, 1994);
Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami, Early Sufi Women (Dhikr
an-niswa al-mutaabhidat as-sufiyyat). Translated by Rkia
E. Cornell (Louisville, Ky.: Fons Vitae, 1999).

Rahim See basmala\ names of God.

Rahman See basmala; names of God.

Rahman, Fazlur (1919-1988) noted liberal
Muslim intellectual, whose wide-ranging writings
examined the Quran, Islamic history, philosophy,
education, and politics

Born in what is now Pakistan, Rahman earned a
masters degree in Arabic from Punjab University
in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1942 and a doctorate in
Islamic PHILOSOPHY from Oxford University in
1949, where he studied under the noted Oriental-
ist scholar, Hamilton A. R. Gibb (1895-1971).

Subsequently, he held academic positions at Dur-
ham University, McGill University, Pakistan's Cen-
tral Institute of Islamic Research, the University
of California-Los Angeles, and the University of
Chicago, where he served until his death.

According to Rahman, the idea of socioeco-
nomic justice is one central notion within the
Quranic message. Rahman maintained that the
most significant problems that emerged during
Islam's medieval period were (1) religious and
political hierarchies that perpetuated socioeco-
nomic oppression and (2) educational systems
that emphasized rote memorization and discour-
aged critical thinking.

According to Rahman, the Quran, as well as
the examples set by Muhammad and the early
Islamic community, requires majority-Muslim
countries to institute democratic political systems.
For example, Rahman believed that Muhammad
and the early Islamic community governed their
affairs by means of shura (consultation) and
ijmaa (consensus) with the equality and freedom
of all Muslims before God functioning as shared
principles among early Muslims. Concomitantly,
Rahman asserted that God has endowed human
beings with a unique capacity to reason (acjl) that
can provide them with tremendous insight and
good judgment as they democratically govern
themselves. At the same time, modern Islamic
educational systems must contribute to Islam-
based democracies by encouraging critical think-
ing and immersing students in diverse academic
disciplines. Rahman's main religious and political
opponents were Pakistani Islamists who were
members of the organization Jamaat-i Islami led
by Sayyid Abu al-Ala Mawdudi. The most sig-
nificant influence of Rahman's life and work is
evident in some American colleges and universi-
ties where many of his former students teach; his
long-term impact on Islamic political and educa-
tional systems remains to be seen.

See also democracy; education; Orientalism;
renewal and reform movements.

Jon Armajani

580 Ramadan

Further reading: Frederick Denny and Earle Waugh,
eds., The Shaping of an American Islamic Discourse: A
Memorial to Fazlur Rahman (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars
Press, 1998); Fazlur Rahman. Islam (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1979); . Islam and

Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); ,

Prophecy in Islam: Philosophy and Orthodoxy (1958.
Reprint, Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Mid-
way Reprint, 2003); , Revival and Reform in

Islam: A Study of Islamic Fundamentalism, edited by
Ebrahim Moosa (Oxford: Oneworld, 2000).

Ramadan (also Ramazan; Puasa in
Indonesia and Malaysia)

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic cal-
endar — a time of obligatory fasting for all able
Muslims, and an important time for commemo-
rating Islamic sacred history. The month-long
fast is the fourth pillar of Islam and requires
abstaining from all food, drink, and sexual activ-
ity during daylight hours. At the end of each
day, the fast is broken with a light meal called
iftar (breakfast). It is a month that fosters com-
munal solidarity and individual piety. Mosque
attendance increases at this time, and many
Muslims fulfill their charitable obligations. In
addition to ritual fasting, daily prayer, and acts
of charity, observant Sunni Muslims also perform
supererogatory prayers known as tarawih at night
throughout the month. The Shia do not accept
this form of prayer.

The onset of the month-long fast is deter-
mined visually when the new moon is sighted
at the end of the eighth month, Shaaban. Simi-
larly, the month ends with the sighting of the
new moon of the 10th month, Shawwal, and
the three-day feast of Id al-Fitr (the breakfast
feast). First occurring during the summer on
the pre-lslamic Arabian solar calendar, Ramadan
became a lunar month with the advent of Islam,
advancing 11 or 12 days each year relative to the
solar calendar.

APPROXIMATE RAMADAN STARTING DATES
2008-2013

2008

September 1

2009

August 21

2010

August 1 1

2011

August 1

2012

July 20

2013

July 9

Ramadan is esteemed to be the holiest month of the
year. This is partly because of its connection with
the revelation of the Quran. Muslims maintain that
the entire holy book was revealed to Muhammad on
the Night of Destiny ( Laylit al-Qadr ), which falls
during the last few days of the month. To facilitate
memorization and recitation, the Quran has been
divided into 30 equal parts, one for each day of this
month. People arc encouraged to gather to listen to
nightly recitations of the Quran and improve their
own knowledge and memorization of the scripture.
Also, it is widely held that God is most receptive
to peoples prayers at this sacred time, especially in
the last few days of the month. Another reason for
the month's special status is its historical connec-
tion with the first victory of Muslims against their
Meccan enemies at Badr in 624, two years after
the Hijra (emigration) to Medina. The chapter of
the Quran that has the most detailed instructions
for the fast, al-Baqara (Q 2, The Cow), is one
that is thought to have been revealed at this time.
Some Euro-American historians of religion have
plausibly argued, based on critical readings of the
Quran and early Islamic historical texts, that the
connection of Ramadan observances with both the
revelation of a holy book and victory over enemies
is patterned after pre-lslamic fasting and feasting
traditions, especially Jewish observance of Yom
Kippur and Passover, which are connected with the
revelation of the Torah to Moses and deliverance
from the pharaoh of Egypt.

Other events in Islamic sacred history that
occurred during Ramadan include the death of
Khadija (Muhammad's first wife) in 619, the birth

Rashid Rida, Muhammad 581

of Fatima (Muhammad's daughter and mother of
the Shii Imams), the assassination of Ali ibn Abi
Talib (the fourth caliph and first Shii Imam) in
661, and the martyrdom of Ali al-Rida (the eighth
Shii Imam) in 818.

Even though the month of fasting affirms the
universal community of all Muslims, individual
Muslim cultures observe Ramadan in a variety of
ways that are shaped by local tradition. There are
distinctive food traditions with respect to dishes
and sweets eaten in the evening and pre-dawn
hours. In North Africa a favorite recipe for break-
ing the fast is a creamy soup called harira, made
of meat, chickpeas, lentils, tomatoes, and fresh
herbs. Turks prepare a tripe soup served with a
pocket bread called ramadan pide (pita). Rama -
daniyya, a dessert made of dried fruits that have
been soaked overnight, is a favorite in the Arabian
Peninsula. Southeast Asian Muslims prepare spe-
cial meat curry dishes and dodol, a dessert made of
sugar, rice flour, and coconut milk.

Aside from different food traditions, Muslims
have other ways of celebrating the month. In
Egypt these include decorating streets and houses
with colorful lanterns. In many Muslim countries
special evening television programs are offered.
Ramadan celebrations in many countries have
become more commercialized in recent years,
with luxury hotels offering expensive iftar ban-
quets featuring popular entertainers. Since the
1980s in the United States, Ramadan has become
the one Muslim holiday of which non-Muslims
have become aware. Community newspapers
publish features about how it is observed by
the local Muslim population, including tradi-
tional food recipes. Since the terrorist attacks
on September 11, 2001, Muslim organizations
have participated increasingly in interfaith activi-
ties, including community iftar dinners with
Christians and Jews. The White House has also
honored this holy Islamic month by holding iftar
dinners.

See also almsgiving; customary law; Five Pil-
lars; FOOD AND DRINK; HOLIDAYS; JUDAISM AND ISLAM.

Further reading: Sarah Gauch, “Fasting Days, Fes-
tive Nights: Ramadan in Cairo." Saudi Aramco World
53 (January-February 2002): 60-65; S. D. Goitein,
“Ramadan: The Muslim Month of Fasting." In Studies in
Islamic History and Institutions, edited by S. D. Goitein,
90-100 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1966); Angelika Neuwirth,
“Three Religious Feasts between Narratives of Violence
and Liturgies of Reconciliation." In Religion between
Violence and Reconciliation, edited by Th. Shcffler,
49-82 (Beirut/Wurzburg: Erbon Vcrlag in Kommission,
2002 ).

Rashid Rida, Muhammad (1865-1935)
Islamic reformer and modernist
Muhammad Rashid Rida was born in Tripoli, Syria
( present-day Lebanon), on September 23, 1865, to
a family that claimed descent from Muhammad. He
was educated first in a traditional religious school
and then at the National Islamic School in Tripoli.
The curriculum at this school combined instruc-
tion in Islamic doctrine and law with European
languages and the natural sciences. Here Rida
learned to view SCIENCE, technology, and some
European political ideas positively. During the
same period Rida became convinced, through
study of the medieval theologians al-Ghazzali
( 1058-1111) and IBN TAYMIYYA (1263-1328), lhat
many contemporary Muslim religious practices
and orders were unacceptable corruptions (sing.
bidaa ) of Islam. He condemned Sufi rituals and
popular saints festivals in particular. He was a pro-
lific writer, producing several books, and worked
most of his life as editor of the magazine Al-Manar
(The beacon), which he founded in 1898. Rida is
one of the most important and influential intel-
lectuals who, through his writings, strove to rec-
oncile Islam with modernity.

As a young man, Rida was deeply impressed
by the Salafi reform movement founded in Cairo
by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-97) and his
student Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905). Both
men argued that Muslims needed to unify against
external threats and internally reinvigorate Islam

582 Rashidun

in order to resist COLONIALISM and Western domi-
nation. They encouraged Muslims to base their
actions on the Quran and sunna and to abandon
any traditional religious practices not supported
by these texts. Together with their call to reopen
the door to ijtihad , or reinterpretation of Islamic
law in light of reason, these assertions under-
mined the leadership role of the traditional ulama.
Upon the death of al-Afghani, Rida moved to
Cairo to work with Muhammad Abduh, where
he expanded access to Salafi thought through his
magazine.

Rida was especially concerned about the
backwardness he perceived in Muslim societies,
which permitted them to be dominated by the
European powers. In response to the challenges
of World War I, and the breakup of the Ottoman
Empire, Rida promoted a program of religious,
political, and social reform that differed some-
what from that of his predecessors. Modern
education, in Ridas view, was sorely needed to
enable the Arab peoples to adopt positive ele-
ments of European civilization, including adop-
tion of modern technical advances. He argued for
the restoration of the caliphate as a remedy for
corrupt regimes who cooperated with the colo-
nial powers. Rida later moved away from PAN-
Islamism toward pan-Arabism and is considered
by some an early proponent of Arab nationalism.
Rida reinterpreted the ideas of the early reform-
ists and passed them on to succeeding Muslim
intellectuals. Different aspects of his ideas have
appealed to both secular modernists in Arab
countries and Islamist activists.

See also Islamism; renewal and reform move-
ments; Salafism; secularism.

Shauna Huffaker

Further reading: Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in
the Liberal Age: 1798-1939 (1962. Reprint, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 222-244; Malcom
H. Kerr. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories
of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1966); Muhammad Rashid

Rida. The Muhammadan Revelation. Translated by Yusuf
DeLorenzo (Alexandria, Va.: Al-Saadawi Publications,
1996); Emad Eldin Shahin, Through Muslim Eyes: M.
Rashid Rida and the West (Herndon, Va.: International
Institute of Islamic Thought, 1993).

Rashidun See Abu Bakr; Ali ibn Abi Talib;
caliph; Umar ibn al-Khattab; Uthman ibn Affan.

rasa I Sec prophets and prophethood.

rawza khavani See Ashura.
ray Sec ijtihad.

Refah Partisi (Turkish: Welfare Party)

The Refah Partisi (RP) is the name of an Islamist
political party that operated in Turkey from
1983 to 1998. Soon after the Republic of Turkey
was founded in 1923, its first president Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) pushed through a scries
of reforms aimed at breaking the hold of Islam
over the state and society. Historically, Turkey's
strong military has been a staunch defender of
these secularist policies, and successive efforts to
ease restrictions on Islamic education and wor-
ship starting in the 1950s have been met with
military coups and the disbanding of political par-
ties oriented toward Islam. When single-party rule
ended in 1950, the new Democrat Party began
easing restrictions that had been imposed on
Islamic education and worship, but it was closed
following the military coup of 1960.

The first explicitly Islamic parties (the National
Order Party in 1971 and the National Salvation
Party in 1980) were formed under the leadership
of Necmettin Erbakan (b. 1926), but they were
closed in the succeeding military coups.

Erbakan was himself banned from politics
following a 1980 coup, but in 1983 Islamists

refugees 583

regrouped under a new party — Refah — of which
Erbakan took control when his ban was lifted in
1987. The party grew steadily in strength, sweep-
ing the local elections of 1994 and gaining impor-
tant mayorships, including Istanbul and Ankara.
In the parliamentary elections of 1995, Refah won
21.4 percent of the vote, a plurality, pressing other
parties to join it to form a coalition. After much
political wrangling, Refah managed to form a gov-
ernment in 1996, with Erbakan as the country's
first Islamist prime minister.

Rcfah's success stemmed from its effective
appeal to a segment of the Sunni population,
which felt Turkeys secular attitude had repressed
Islam, but also to its populist and anticorruption
discourse, and to its strong grass-roots organi-
zation, which distributed food and other basic
necessities to the poor. Erbakan sought closer
ties with countries such as Iran and Libya, and
it openly supported the religious brotherhoods,
which had been outlawed since 1925. These and
other reform measures met with opposition from
the military and the secular media, and, in 1997,
under heavy pressure from the military, Erbakan
resigned as prime minister. The Refah Party was
closed in 1998, and Erbakan was again banned
from politics.

Some Refah members resurfaced in the Fazilet
(Virtue) Party, with a more Western orientation,
focusing on DEMOCRACY, civil rights, and entrance
into the European Union, but, despite its more
moderate approach, Fazilet also ran into problems
with the secularist forces, especially over the issue
of women wearing hcadscarves. In 2001 Fazilet
was also closed down, after which a split occurred
in its ranks. The younger, more moderate faction
formed the AKP (justice and Development Party).
Refah Party members have subsequently worked
with the Fazilet (Virtue) Party and the AKP (Jus-
tice and Development) Party, the latter of which
won a majority of parliamentary seats in the 2002
election, and it was able to form a government
with Recep Tayyip Erdogan (b. 1954) as prime
minister.

See also government, Islamic; human rights;
Islamism; politics and Islam; secularism.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Marvine Howe, Turkey Today: A Nation
Divided over Islam's Revival (Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press. 2000); David Shankland, Islam and Society in
Turkey (Huntingdon. U.K.: Eothen Press, 1999).

refugees

Civilians who are forced to flee their homes to
escape violence or persecution are known as refu-
gees. Several major refugee migrations are known
in the history of Islam before the modern era.
These include the flight of Muslims to Syria and
Egypt in the west and India in the east to escape
the onslaught of the Mongol armies that invaded
the Middle East in the 13th century, and again in
the 14th and 15th centuries. These refugees con-
tributed significantly to religious, intellectual, and
social life in the countries where they made their
new homes. Another significant refugee popula-
tion consisted of Jews and Muslims who were
driven out of Spain by the European Christian
armies of the Reconquista in the 14th and 15th
centuries. Most of these refugees settled in North
Africa, Egypt, and lands in the cast Mediterra-
nean basin. In the 19th century sizeable Muslim
refugee populations were created as a result of the
Crimean War (1853-56) and the British suppres-
sion of the Sepoy Rebellion in northern India in
1857.

Like many other parts of the world, lands with
sizeable Muslim populations in the Middle East
and South Asia witnessed massive population
displacements in the 20th century, resulting in the
creation of millions of refugees and significant dis-
ruptions to economic, social, political, religious,
and personal networks. Ottoman massacres of
Armenian Christians in the early part of the cen-
tury forced survivors of that minority community
to flee to Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt.
In 1947 the partition of India led to unparalleled

584 refugees

cross-migrations of Muslims from India to Paki-
stan and Sikhs and Hindus from Pakistan to India.
It is estimated that more than 10 million people
were involved in this bi-directional exodus of
civilians fleeing outbreaks of violence. The 1947
partition also led to the creation of Kashmiri refu-
gee populations composed mainly of Muslims and
Hindus, and of Bihari Muslims who moved to West
Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to escape communal
violence. Later, in 1971, the war for the libera-
tion of Bangladesh from West Pakistan involved
widespread violence against civilians and to the
creation of refugee camps for Biharis, who opposed
independence from West Pakistan.

One of the longest lasting unsettled refugee
crises in the world is that of the Palestinians.
According to the UN Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees in the New East (UNRWA),
914,000 Palestinians lost their homes between
June 1946 and May 1948, as a result of the Arab-
Isracli conflict. These people and their descen-
dants, numbering by 2002 over 4 million, are
officially considered refugees by UNRWA. How-
ever, only a fraction of them, approximately 1.3
million Palestinians, currently live in UNRWA-
administered refugee camps in Gaza, the West
Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Existing in
crushing poverty, Palestinian refugees in these
camps face serious health problems and limited
options for EDUCATION and employment. In addi-
tion, those living in Gaza and the West Bank
come under nearly constant physical threat from
the ongoing violence between Israeli soldiers and
Palestinian resistance fighters, and they often face
further displacement with the continued estab-
lishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied
territories. Unlike all other refugees in the world,
Palestinian refugees are not protected by the
UN's Refugee Convention (1951) because some
of them receive direct assistance from UNRWA.
Thus, the millions who are not living under the
direct influence of UNRWA receive no protection,
while those under the watch of UNRWA receive
merely basic assistance.

Afghan nationals comprise another population
that has suffered massive population displace-
ment, both internal and external. Prior to the U.S.
invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 following
the September 11, 2001, attacks, over 5 million
Afghans had become refugees as a result of more
than 25 years of civil war and foreign invasion.
Four million of those refugees sought sanctuary
in neighboring countries, such as Iran and Paki-
stan, while another million lived displaced within
Afghanistan itself, making Afghans the largest
refugee population it the world today. In 2001 all
six of Afghanistan's neighbors have closed their
borders to further refugees. At the same time,
hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been
encouraged to return to their homes. Unfortu-
nately the instability that remains in Afghanistan
makes a viable resettlement nearly impossible in
most regions of the country.

Perhaps the fastest growing refugee popula-
tion today consists of Iraqis, Muslims and non-
Muslims, as a consequence of the U.S. occupation
of the country in 2003 and the civil war that
erupted there in 2006. It is estimated that as of
September 2007 nearly 2.3 million had fled their
homes for safer parts of Iraq (United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR).
These arc called “internally displaced persons."
Another 2.5 million have fled to other countries
in the region, especially Jordan, Syria, Iran, Tur-
key, Lebanon, and Egypt (UNHCR 2007). The
assets these refugees were able to take with them
have quickly dwindled, posing serious social,
political, and economic challenges for the host
countries. About 100,000 Iraqis have moved
to countries in Europe, the United States, and
Canada (UNHCR 2007). Prior to the U.S. -led
invasion of 2003, over 2 million Kurds had been
displaced from their homes in Iraq and Turkey,
and over 100,000 Marsh Arabs were displaced
from their traditional homelands in southern
Iraq by the government forces of Saddam Husayn
(d. 2006). One of the staggering human costs of
war in the Middle East, its dramatic refugee cri-

586 renewal and reform movements

“Let there be a community among you that calls
people to the good and commands what is right
and forbids what is wrong" (Q 3:104). Likewise,
it says, “Indeed, God will not change what is in a
people until they change what is in themselves"
(Q 13:11). Such declarations have been used by
Muslims in later times to call for individual moral
correction in accordance with what is understood
to be God’s Law (the sharia) and, circumstances
permitting, to advocate collective moral, religious,
and social reform. The quranic term that is used
most commonly today with respect to the idea of
reform is islah. It is related to a term for reconcilia-
tion and peacemaking (su/fi), as well as to the idea
of doing what is good. In its verbal form it can also
mean "to restore" and "to renew," and those who
engage in such action are the "restorers" or "recon-
cilers” (muslilnin). Islah was not widely used in the
sense of "reform” until the modern reform move-
ments of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Arabic term most commonly used for
renewal is tajdid. Unlike islah , this word is not
found in the Quran. Rather, proponents of Islamic
renewal cite a HAD1TH found in later collections
(Abu Dawud, ninth century). This hadith states,
"At the beginning of each century God will bring
forth for this community (umma) a person who
will renew its religion.” Different "renewers" (sing.
mujaddid) have been acclaimed in Islamic history.
These include the Umayyad caliph Umar II (r.
71 7-720), Sunni theologian and mystic al-Ghazali
(d. 1111), Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1327),
Egyptian Sunni scholar Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d.
1305), Indian mystic and reformer Ahmad Sirhindi
(d. 1625), and Iranian jurist and revolutionary
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989). The idea
ol a "renewer" is primarily encountered in Sunni
Islam; it is eclipsed in Shiism by belief in the Mahdi.
Nevertheless, there have been important religious
reform movements in Shii communities, too.

The establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate
in the eighth century and the subsequent con-
solidation of orthodox Sunnism also contributed
significantly to the shaping of Islamic reform-

ism and renewal. Pro-Abbasid Sunni historians
portrayed the Umayyad Caliphate as illegitimate,
accusing it of being too worldly and un-Islamic,
the implication being that the Abbasids were the
legitimate restorers of the true religion of the
prophet Muhammad. Developments during the
first century of Abbasid rule led not only to the
establishment of the major Sunni legal schools,
but also to the articulation of the fundamental
principles of belief. Rather than Abbasid political
authorities, however, it was the religious scholars,
the ulama, who became the official arbiters of the
sharia and Islamic teachings. Though every Mus-
lim in theory was responsible for leading people
on the path of religious and ethical correctness, the
ulama claimed priority. This is reflected in the list
of mujaddids named above, all but one of whom
(Umar II) had expertise in the religious sciences.

MODERN RENEWAL AND
REFORM MOVEMENTS

Although Islamic movements of this type differ in
organization, ideology, and even objective, there
are nevertheless characteristics that many of them
share. These include (1) promoting a "return” to
the "straight path" of religion based on the Quran
and SUNNA, which are regarded as universally
valid; (2) looking to the righteous community of
the first Muslims (the salaf) for inspiration; (3)
and reforming traditional practices and beliefs
that are considered to be innovations (sing, bidaa)
or deviations from cherished Islamic principles
established by the Quran, Muhammad, and the
salaf. Islamic studies scholars also point out that
reformers and revivalists have not only been
critical of rulers, but also of "traditionalist" reli-
gious authorities who rely too much on "imita-
tion" ( taqlid ) at the expense of essential Islamic
principles. In order to validate their break with
traditionalists and imitators and adapt the Quran
and Sunna to changing circumstances, reformers
call for the use of ijtihad, an approved method
of jurisprudence (f/qh) that allows for the use of
individual legal reasoning when explicit guidance

590 revelation

involved in revelation, the Quran and the earlier
revelations of the Torah, Psalms, and the Gospel
are all believed to be earthly manifestations of
a heavenly book, known as “the mother of the
book" (umm al-kitab ), “the preserved tablet" ( al -
lawh al-mahludh), and “the hidden writing" (kitab
maknun). Muslims believe that the Quran was not
sent down directly in the form of a physical book
of scripture, but that it was God's speech, recited
(or read) to Muhammad. Only after Muhammad
died, according to conventional accounts, was it
assembled in the form of book.

Although some of the revelations Muhammad
had were of a visual nature, most were verbal. Pas-
sages in the Quran suggest that Muhammad had
a vision of God (Q 53:1-18). Others suggest that
Gabriel was the conveyor of revelation, which
has become the conventional belief. According to
the hadith, on some occasions Muhammad saw
Gabriel approach as a young man and repeated
what he heard the ANGEL say. The accounts of
Muhammad's first revelation provided by the
Sira of Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) and Tabari's history
(late ninth century) relate that while on retreat
in a mountain cave near Mecca he saw a supra-
mundane being, identified as Gabriel, who com-
manded him to recite the first lines of Sura 96.
When Muhammad expressed reluctance to recite,
the angel throttled and pressed upon him until
he accepted the call. After this he fled to his wife
Khadija who, together with her cousin Waraqa bin
Nawfal, confirmed the authenticity of his revela-
tory experience. Subsequent experiences of rev-
elation were less dramatic. The hadith relate that
instead of a vision Muhammad heard a sound like
a bell ringing or the buzzing of bees before hear-
ing the revealed message. He also received revela-
tion in the form of inspiration (vvuJiy). Although
the sayings of Muhammad contained in the hadith
are not “revelations" per se, one group of them,
known as “sacred hadith," contained divine state-
ments not found in the Quran that are credited
to Muhammad as the transmitter, unlike quranic
verses. The counterpart of quranic revelations that

“descended" upon Muhammad or were inspired
in him was his famed Night Journey and Ascent,
an event during which he is said to have seen and
conversed with a number of former prophets,
angels, and God himself. The instructions for the
five daily prayers were given to him according to
conventional accounts of this event.

Although Muslims consider the Quran a
unique revelation, it is not the only kind of revela-
tion that has been claimed in Islamic history. Shii
ULAMA have attributed to their Imams the ability to
receive inspiration from God when a matter arose
that was not addressed in the Quran or Sunna.
They called this kind of inspiration ilham , and
sometimes wahy, a lesser kind of revelation than
that received by Muhammad. Jaafar al-Sadiq (d.
765), the sixth Imam, is credited with stating,

A messenger (rasul) is one who secs an angel
who comes to him with the message from
his lord. He speaks with him just as one of
you would speak with your companion. And
the prophet (nab i) docs not see the angel
but revelation (wcdiy) descends upon him
and he sees (the angel) in a vision . . . and
the speaker (the imam) hears the voice but
does not sec anything (adapted from Momen
150).

The Shii Imams are also identified with the
“signs" ( ayat ) of God mentioned in the Quran (for
example, Q 29:49-50; 36:46). This suggests that
they embody revelation.

A further elaboration of notions of revelation
occurred within the circles of the Sufis, the vir-
tuosos of Islamic mysticism. Many acknowledged
that saints could receive divine inspiration, called
ilhani t but that this differed in kind and degree
from the kind of revelation received by prophets
( wahy ; tanzil )• In contrast to the Shia, some held
the view that this inspiration was meant for the
individual rather than the community as a whole,
though most saints were looked to as authorities
and examples to be emulated by their disciples and

592 ridda

and EDUCATION reforms, mandated a Western
dress code, and abolished the wearing of the
veil. He created a strong central government by
destroying the old fiefdoms that had divided the
country internally and he limited the authority
of Iran's Shii religious institutions by control-
ling the tithes that functioned as their primary
source of wealth. The shah's reforms sparked
Iran's economy and reignited its sense of national
sovereignty, making Iran one of the most stable
and formidable powers in the Middle East. Yet,
because of his lasting distrust of the British and
Russians, Reza Shah Pahlavi chose not to assist
the Allies in their fight against German forces
during World War II. As a result, in the closing
year of the war, the Allied forces rcoccupied Iran,
forced his abdication, and replaced him on Iran's
throne with his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (r.
1944-79).

Reza Aslan

Further reading: Amin Banani, The Modernization of
Iran (Stanford. Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961);
Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah (London:
l.B. Tauris, 1998); l loma Katouzian, State and Society in
Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the
Pahlavis (London: l.B. Tauris, 2000).

ridda See APOSTASY.

Rifai Sufi Order

The Rifai Sufi Order takes its name from Ahmad
al-Rifai (1106-82), a Shafii legal scholar and
mystic from the marshlands of southern Iraq.
He was a contemporary of Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani
(d. 1166), the eponymous founder of the Qadiri
Sufi Order, and disciples claimed he was from
the household of Muhammad, the Prophet. Details
about al-Rifai's life are sketchy, other than that he
was raised by his paternal uncle, Mansur, after the
death of his father. Mansur had initiated a der-
vish order called the Rifaiyya, which Ahmad led

after his uncles death. He was 28 years old at the
time. His tomb in the village of Umm Ubayda in
southern Iraq had become a large dervish hospice
by the time Ibn Battuta visited it in the mid-14th
century. The famed Rifai Mosque in Cairo is also
thought to contain his remains, but because this
is a late- 19th century mosque, it most likely con-
tains the remains of one of his descendants or a
Rifai shaykh.

As has often been the case for Islamic organi-
zations, it was Ahmads disciples who developed
the orders rituals, rules, and doctrines. They
also established branches throughout the Middle
East and southeastern Europe. It remained the
most widespread order in Sunni Arab lands
until the 15th century, when it was superseded
by the Qadiri order. The Ottoman SULTAN Abd
al-Hamid 11 (d. 1918) renewed its importance as
part of his effort to promote pan-1slamism. Today
the most prominent Rifai branches are in Iraq,
Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia and Her-
zegovina, Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece. There
are branches in coastal cities of India, especially
Surat, where it is the most important Sufi order.
Several branches have also been established in
the United States, including in California and
New York.

According to a 16th-century source, the Rifais
credited their founder with teaching about five
stages (maqamat) of spiritual development: pious
circumspection ( waraa ), worship ( taabud ), love
( mahabba ), mystical insight or gnosis ( tnaarifa ),
and unity with God ( tawhid ). The Rifai order
is most famous for its ecstatic rituals, which
included riding lions, snake-handling, walking
on fire, eating glass, and piercing the body with
hooks, swords, and skewers. The shaykh of the
order purifies the wounds of the dervishes with
his spittle. The absence of bleeding is taken as a
demonstration of the saints miraculous powers.
Such practices came to be widely condemned in
the Muslim community only in the 19th and 20th
centuries, when political authorities, liberals,
and Wahhabi-minded reformers denounced such

Rumi,Jalal al-Din 593

practices as un-Islamic innovations. Nevertheless,
they are still conducted among some Rifai groups
today.

See also ahl al-bayt; Badawi, Ahmad al-; bidaa ;
maqam; mawl/d; ; miracle; Sufism.

Further reading: Frederick De Jong. Turuq and Turuq-
Linked Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1978); John S. Trimingham, The Suji Orders
in Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Peter
Van Der Veer, “Playing or Praying: A Sufi Saints Day in
Surat." Journal of Asian Studies 51, no. 3 (August 1992):
545-564.

rosary See prayer beads.

ruh Sec soul and spirit.

Rumi, Jalal al-Din (Mawlana, Arabic:

Our Master) (1207-1273) Persian Sufi master
and mystical poet who lived much of his life in Konya,
Turkey

Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi is perhaps the most
famous Sufi poet, and he is one of the most
cherished poets in Persian literature, due to the
beauty and exuberance of his voluminous poetry,
which has inspired Muslims for centuries and,
more recently, spiritual seekers in Europe and the
Americas.

Jalal al-Din was born in Balkh (in modern-
day Afghanistan) in 1207, but when still a child
migrated with his father to Anatolia (known in
Islamic history as Rum, hence the name Rumi),
shortly before the Mongol invasions. They settled
in Konya, which was then the capital of the Seljuk
dynasty of Rum (1077-1307), and Rumis father
secured a position as a teacher of Islamic sciences.
When his father died, Rumi took over the posi-
tion, and was widely respected. In 1244 his life
changed when he met a wandering dervish named
Shams al-Din Tabrizi (d. 1248), and the two

became inseparable friends. Under the influence
of Shams, Rumi was inspired to write exuberant
mystical poetry and was introduced to the ecstatic
whirling dance known as samaa (Arabic: audi-
tion). Many of his verses were in fact composed
while Rumi was whirling in samaa. After Shams
died, Rumi found similar spiritual friendships
with a goldsmith named Salah al-Din Zarkub (d.
1258), and later Husam al-Din (d. 1284-85), with
whose inspiration Rumi began to compose the
verses that would become his most famous work,
the M athnawi. Rumi died in Konya in 1273. His
life was described in hagiographical works not
long after his death, such as Aflakis Manaqib al-
arifin (The virtues of the gnostics).

Rumis most important works include a large
collection of short lyric poems called Divan-i

Tomb ofjalal al-Din Rumi in Konya, Turkey Juan E.
Campo)

Rushdie, Salman 595

identities that come with being Asian in London.
The main character is Gibreel Farishta (which
translates from Urdu as “the Angel Gabriel”). It
is this character who assumes the persona of the
angel Gabriel and has a series of dreams that begin
in the second chapter of the book, “Mahound.”
Mahound (a name for the prophet Muhammad in
medieval Christian polemic against Muslims) is
an orphan, a businessman living in a city named
Jahilia, who through revelation begins to preach
a religion named “Submission,” which represents
Islam. In another chapter, Gibreel also has a series
of encounters with another character, an exile,
known simply as “the imam,” who represents
Khomeini.

The book was first banned in India on October
5, 1988, at the urging of several Indian Muslim
politicians. Subsequently, the book was banned in
South Africa (November 24, 1988), burned pub-
licly in Bradford, England (January I4 t 1989), and
protested against in Islamabad, Pakistan (where
six people died during a riot on February 12,
1989) and Bombay (with 12 people killed in a riot
on February 24, 1989). On February 14, 1989,
Khomeini pronounced his death sentence on
Rushdie. While distancing itself from Khomeinis
death sentence, the 11th session of the Islamic
Law Academy of the Muslim World League (held
in Mecca from February 10 to 26, 1989) issued
a statement declaring Rushdie an apostate and
recommending that he be prosecuted in a British
court and tried in absentia under the sharia laws
of an Islamic country.

On the whole, North American responses
were much more muted and peaceful than in
other countries. To take the case of Toronto, the
city with Canadas largest population of Muslims,
there was a deliberate effort made by various
Muslim communities to keep the protests nonvio-
lent. The protests in Toronto, as well as in major
American cities such as Los Angeles and New
York, were not used for political purposes, in the
way that they were used in, for example, Iran or
India. No Muslim leaders in North America used

the book as an occasion to develop or consolidate
their own power. Many Muslims in the UNITED
States and Canada felt hurt by the book. Unlike
in some other countries, such as Pakistan, there
was also some sympathy and tolerance for Rush-
die in North America, and, in fact, a small number
of Muslims did not want the book to be banned.

During his time in hiding, Rushdie became
quite a celebrity, but he was still able to publish
a number of works. These included a children’s
story written for his son, Haroun and the Sea of
Stories (1990); a collection of nonfiction, Imagi-
nary Homelands (1991); a collection of short
stories. East , West (1994); and a novel, The Moor's
Last Sigh (1995). Rushdie's marriage to the nov-
elist Marianne Wiggins also ended during his
time in hiding. Changes in the governments of
both Iran and Britain led to an end to the fatwa,
announced on September 24, 1998, in a joint
statement issued by the foreign ministers of Iran
and Britain. Since coming out of hiding, Rushdie
has written four other novels; The Ground Beneath
Her Feet (1999), Fury (2001), Shalimar the Clown
(2005), and The Enchantress of Florence (2008).

In 2000 Rushdie moved from London to New
York City. He continues to write and has pub-
lished several short pieces on Islam. These arc col-
lected in his second anthology of nonfiction, Step
Across This Line (2002). In 1993 he was awarded
the Booker of Bookers for Midnight's Children. In
2005, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reaf-
firmed the fatwa that called for Rushdies death.
In 2006 Rushdie accepted a teaching position at
Emory University, where his official archive will
be housed. In 2008, he won the Best of the Booker
for Midnight's Children.

See also apostasy; Europe; Jahiliyya; Satanic
Verses.

Amir Hussain

Purther reading: Lisa Appignanesi and Sara Maitland,
eds.. The Rushdie File (London: Fourth Estate, 1989);
Roger Y. Clark. Stranger Gods: Salman Rushdie's Other
Worlds (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press,

sacrifice See Id al-Adha.

sadaqa See almsgiving.

al-Sadat, Muhammad Anwar ( 1919 -
1981 ) president of Egypt from 1970 to 1981
Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat served as Egyptian
president from September 28, 1970, until his assas-
sination on October 6, 1981. Sadat was born into a
poor family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. He grad-
uated from the Royal Military Academy in 1938,
was involved in the Free Officer Movement, and its
efforts to oust the British from Egypt and nationalize
the Suez Canal. Sadat served in various prominent
positions in the government of Jamal Abd al-Nasir,
including as vice president from 1964.

In 1973 Sadat, along with Syria, launched the
Yom Kippur War (October War) with Israel, which
succeeded in regaining parts of the Sinai Peninsula
and garnered much popularity for him domesti-
cally. On November 19, 1977, Sadat became the
first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he
met Prime Minister Menachem Begin and spoke
before the Knesset in Jerusalem. This visit ulti-
mately resulted in the 1978 Camp David Accords,
which stipulated that Egypt recognize Israel and
secured American economic aid for Egypt, which

continues today. Sadat pursued economic poli-
cies that were more favorable to capitalism and
outside trade than those of his predecessor, Jamal
Abd al-Nasir. Sadat was immensely popular in the
West — he graced the cover of the November 28,
1977, issue of Time magazine and received the
1978 Nobel Peace Prize.

Sadat styled himself as the "believer presi-
dent,'* praying regularly and publicly, and initially
he enjoyed a cordial relationship with Muslim and
Islamist organizations. From the beginning of his
presidency, Sadat sought to downplay the social-
ism of the Abd al-Nasir period and encouraged
antisocialist elements in Egypt. This included
permitting the public expression of Islamic oppo-
sition, releasing many of the activists imprisoned
by Abd al-Nasir, and allowing the Muslim Broth-
erhood to publish magazines and organize in
MOSQUES and universities — this actually backfired,
providing a forum for Islamist activists to express
themselves. Further, Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, rec-
ognition of Israel, and economic policies soured
his relationship with the Islamic opposition, spur-
ring the growth of Islamist movements such as
al-Takfir wal Hijra and Islamic Jihad. Under the
threat of growing opposition, Sadat changed his
stance, and, in September 1981, he cracked down
on Muslim organizations and student groups,

597

598 Saddam Hussein

with arrests totaling nearly 1,600. These purges
added fuel to the fire, and, on October 6, Sadat
was assassinated in Cairo during a parade com-
memorating the 1973 war. The assassin was
Khalid Islambouli, a member of Islamic Jihad. It
could be said that the Islamist movement in Egypt
reached its maturity under Sadat's presidency.

Joshua Hoffman

Further reading: Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt during the
Sadat Years (New York: Palgrave, 2000); Raymond A.
Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-
Populist Development of an Authoritarian-Modernizing
State (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienncr Publishers, 1988);
Anwar El Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography
(New York: Harper and Row, 1978).

Saddam Hussein See Husayn, Saddam.

Safavid dynasty

The Safavid dynasty ruled Iran from 1501 to
1722, and it was the first to institute Shii Islam as
the official state religion. Although the founder of
the Safavid dynasty was likely Safi ad-Din Ishaq
(b. ca. 1252), head of a mysterious paramilitary
Sufi order in Gilan called the Safawiyya, it was not
until one of Safi ad-Dins heirs, a 15-year-old boy
named Ismail (d. 1524), defeated the rival tribes
in Iran and declared himself shah in 1501 that the
Safavid dynasty was born.

Shah Ismail was a charismatic figure who
proclaimed Twelve-Imam Shiism the official state
religion and declared a brutal jihad against Sunni
Islam both within his lands and in the neighboring
Ottoman Empire. The young king was unmoved
by arguments against the legitimacy of a Shii stale
in the absence of the Hidden Imam, simply declar-
ing himself to be the long-awaited Mahdi. Safavid
extremism ended under Ismail's successors, but the
ideological and religious nature of the state he had
founded continued throughout the Safavid era, so
that Shiism is to this day the state religion of Iran.

The Safavid state flourished for two centuries
after Ismail's death, reaching its zenith at the

end of the 16th century under the reign of Shah
Abbas I (r. 1587-1629). Abbas not only created
a strong bureaucratic state backed by a power-
ful military force, but he also turned his capital,
Isfahan, into one of the most prosperous and re-
splendent cities in the Middle East. Indeed, many
of Islam's greatest and most lasting contributions
to architecture, the arts, and the sciences were de-
veloped in Isfahan under Safavid patronage.

By the beginning of the 18th century, however,
a number of internal and external factors resulted
in a massive decline in the state's economy. Upris-
ings throughout Iran ultimately led to the destruc-
tion of the Safavid dynasty in 1722, but it was not
until 1773 and the ascension of Nadir Shah as the
first ruler of the Afsharid dynasty that the Safavid
state ceased to exist.

See also Qajar dynasty; Sufism; Usuli School.

Reza Aslan

Further reading: Marshal Hodgson, The Venture of
Islam. Vol. 3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1974); Charles Melville, cd., Safavid Persia (London:
LB. Taurus. 1996); Roger Savory, Iran under the Safavids
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

sahaba See Companions of the Prophet.
sahur Sec Ramadan.

saint

The Arabic word usually translated as saint,
WALi t refers primarily to the quranic verse 10:62:
“Indeed, on the friends of God ( awliya Allah)
there is no fear, neither shall they grieve.'' Two
words derived from wait are generally taken to
refer to sainthood, wilaya and WALAYA . Medieval
Muslim scholars, as well as contemporary observ-
ers of Islam, have debated which of these two
terms is the most appropriate, for they can be
understood to have different meanings: wilaya
connotes power, while walaya generally indicates
closeness. While Muslim scholars have differed as

saint 599

to whether the saints are known by their closeness
to God or their power, the saints in fact should be
understood to be very special people who com-
bine these two attributes. “Saint,” then, connotes
both friend and protector. One who is a saint is
close to God. God protects the saint and gives the
saint power (baraka). Just as God is the patron of
the saint, dispensing power to him or her, so, too,
the saint has power and acts as a patron.

There is no generally recognized churchlike
structure in Islam to recognize or canonize saints,
which means that the saints emerge relatively
organically from their environments. This does
not mean, however, that one becomes a saint
spontaneously, or without effort. On the contrary,
it is clear that individuals have often striven to be

Popular religious poster showing an assembly of lead-
ing Chishti saints, shown with their shrines in India

considered saints, and it is also clear that saints are
made, or at least come to be widely recognized, by
the actions and efforts of their followers.

The great scholar of Sufism, Abu al-Qasim
al-Qushayri (d. 1072), defined the saint as “first,
someone whose affairs are taken over by God, and,
second, as someone whose worship of God is con-
stant without any defect of rebellion" (Hoffman,
109). People may become saints after long years of
discipline and asceticism, or they may reach that
state in an immediate, overwhelming experience
of the divine that takes over the person's intellect.
At the level of the average believer, however, the
defining characteristic of saints is the ability to
work miracles, known as karamat, through their
blessing power (baraka). This power to work
miracles is a sine qua non for saints, much as it is
in Christianity.

The saints are thus special people, often hidden
or obscured from the attention of others during
their lives, who have a special closeness to God that
allows them to act as intercessors on behalf of the
believers, providing them access to the power and
grace of God. Most often the deceased saint has a
shrine to which people make visitation (ziyara),
and to which people come annually for a local or
regional saint festival (m awlid). This shrine, known
variously as a maqam, qubba, darih , or dargah,
contains the body and relics of the saint. It is also
believed to contain the saints baraka.

The reality of saints, and especially their venera-
tion, has been under strenuous attack in the Islamic
world for over a century. Renewal and reform
movements of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries
have objected to the practices associated with saint
veneration. The Wahhabis, who emerged in the
Arabian Peninsula in the 18th century, destroyed
all the saints shrines they found, a practice that is
continued by the modern Saudi state through some
of its charitable arms. For them, saint veneration
risked compromising the Islamic belief in the one-
ness of God, thus constituting idolatry, or shirk: the
greatest sin of Islam. In the 19th and 20th centuries,
many Muslim reformers came to see saint veneration
as archaic superstition that had to be eliminated il

600 Saladin

Muslims were ever to become modern, which most
Muslims agree is a necessity. In the Salafism move-
ment, especially during the time of Muhammad
Rashid Rida (d. 1935), these two strands of thought
largely merged, leading to the present situation in
which saint veneration is often the province of the
less educated and less sophisticated. The dominant
discourse, which is largely a modernist one, has
come to look down upon saint veneration and inter-
cession as being both un-lslamic and backwards.
This does not mean that saints or their cults are
disappearing. It does mean, however, that many
Muslims, and particularly those who are intellectu-
ally and politically active, will, for the foreseeable
future, perceive the saints to be an aspect of “folk"
or “popular” Islam rather than the integral part of
Islam that they were for a millennium.

Sec also awl al-bayt; al-Badawi, Ahmad; bidaa;
miracle; Sufism; Wahhabism; Zaynab bint Ali ibn
Abi Talib.

John Iskander

Further reading: Vincent Cornell, Realm of the Saint:
Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin: Uni-
versity of Texas Press, 1998); Gerald T. Elmore, Islamic
Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-Arabis Booh of
the Fabulous Gryphon (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999); Valeric J.
Hoffman, “Muslim Sainthood, Women, and the Legend of
Sayyida Nafisa." In Women Saints in World Religions, edited
by Arvind Sharma, 107-144 (Albany: Stale University of
New York Press, 2000); Lamin Sanneh, “Saints and Virtue
in African Islam: An Historical Approach." In Saints and
Virtues, edited by John Stratton Hawley, 127-143 (Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1987).

Saladin (Al Malik al Nasir Abu’l Muzaffar
Yussuf ibn Ayyub, better known by his title,
Salah al-Din) (1138-1193) Muslim soldier
and leader of Kurdish descent, who became the ruler
of Egypt and Syria and led the Arab Muslim jihad
against the Crusaders

Saladin was born in Takrit, north of Baghdad in
Iraq, where his father was governor. But Saladin's
family transferred their loyalty to Nur al-Din ibn
Zangi, the ruler of Aleppo and Damascus. Sala-

din began his career as a member of the military
machine marshaled by Nur al-Din to combat the
Christian crusaders in the latter half of the 12th
century. Nur al-Din's first task was to unify the
Muslims and it was with this aim that Saladin was
sent as part of an expeditionary force to defeat the
Shii Fatimid rulers of Egypt. The campaign was
successful and shortly thereafter Saladin was rec-
ognized as the ruler of Egypt. In this role, Saladin
undertook numerous building projects to fortify
the country's defenses, most notably the citadel that
still has a prominent place on the Cairo skyline.

Saladin's ambitions placed him in conflict with
Nur al-Din, but before they could settle the matter
in battle, Nur al-Din died in 1174. Saladin spent
the next 12 years continuing Nur al-Din's program
of unifying the Muslim princes of Syria and Pales-
tine, this time under his own authority and lead-
ership. Once he had accomplished this — cither by
treaty or by force — Saladin focused his efforts on
expelling the crusaders from the region.

He began his offensive campaign with a deci-
sive victory in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin. Saladin
then led his troops in retaking, with little resistance
or bloodshed, most of the Crusade cities and for-
tresses. Saladin's primary objective, however, was
Jerusalem, which he besieged in 1189. Unable to
adequately defend themselves, the city's inhabitants
quickly came to terms with Saladin, who allowed
them to ransom themselves as prisoners of war.
This action stood in sharp contrast to the crusader
conquest of the city almost a century earlier. Indeed
Saladin was famous for his generosity and honor.
He often allowed crusader prisoners to go free with
the simple promise not to take up arms against him
again — a promise that was not always kept.

The highpoint of Saladin's career came with
restoration of the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem.
The last years of his life were spent battling the
Christian forces in the Third Crusade, which ended
in stalemate. Richard the Lion-Heart led many rein-
forcements from Europe to Palestine through the
crusader stronghold of Tyre, securing cities on the
coast but never gaining a foothold inland nor enter-
ing Jerusalem. Although Richard requested to meet

Salafism 601

Saladin on many occasions, Saladin always refused,
stating: "Kings meet together only after the conclu-
sion of an accord, for it is unthinkable for them to
wage war once they know one another and have
broken bread together." They eventually did sign a
five-year peace treaty, but they never met, as Rich-
ard left immediately thereafter for England. Saladin
died a few months later in 1193 in Damascus.

In European sources Saladin is regarded as a
worthy opponent of generous and noble character.
In Muslim sources he is praised for his commit-
ment to unifying Muslims, waging jihad against
the crusaders, and strengthening Sunni Islam in
all the territories under his control by enforcing
justice and supporting religious institutions. His
descendants formed the Ayyubid dynasty that
ruled Syria and Egypt until 1250.

See also Christianity and Islam.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of
the Crusades (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1957); H. A. R. Gibb, The Life of Saladin (Oxford:
Clarendon Press); Malcolm Cameron Lyons and D. E.
P. Jackson, Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press); Amin Maalouf.
The Crusades through Arab Eyes. Translated by Jon Roth-
schild (1984. Reprint, Cairo: The American University
in Cairo Press, 1990).

Salafism (Arabic: al-Salafiyya)

Salafism refers to a cluster of different Sunni
RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS and ideologies
in contemporary Islam. The term is based on
the Arabic word salaf — the pious ancestors of
the Islamic l/MMA, also known as al-salaf al-salih
(the righteous ancestors). Salafists consider these
ancestors to be the Muslims who had lived during
early centuries of Islam, especially the Compan-
ions of the prophet Muhammad (until 712), their
Successors (the tabiin) in the second generation
(until 796), and then the Successors of the Suc-
cessors in the third (until 855). Although some
scholars mistakenly trace Salafism back through
the centuries to these first generations, it is actu-

ally a modern phenomenon. Since the latter part of
the 19th century, when they first appeared, Salaf-
ists have used the print and later the electronic
media to promote their message that Islam, as well
as Muslim society, is in crisis, having been cor-
rupted from within by backward-thinking ulama,
Sufism, and spurious innovations (sing, b/daa).
Moreover, they maintained that Islam was being
threatened from without by Western COLONIALISM
and SECULARISM. In order to meet these challenges,
Salafists have sought to restore Islam to what they
believe is its ideal, pristine form. Their reading of
the past, however, has been shaped by their pres-
ent circumstances and concerns.

Salafists are in general agreement that bring-
ing back the true Islam means to stop blindly fol-
lowing the rulings of the ulama of the traditional
Sunni law schools and look instead only to the
Quran, the sunna of the prophet Muhammad, and
the example of the salaf. They have had radically
different opinions about how to do this, how-
ever — a fact often overlooked by journalists and
scholars. The modernist branch of the Salafis, first
established in Egypt by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani
(d. 1897) and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905), have
seen the Quran and sunna in the light of reason,
seeking in them spiritual inspiration and general
ethical principles, as they believe the first Muslims
had done. They have also accepted the author-
ity of these sources in matters of worship, like
prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and the HAJJ. Matters
not dealt with in the Quran and sunna are to be
decided by the application of ijtihad (independent
human judgment), which they were convinced
would provide the community with the vitality
needed to adapt to modernity. The other branch
of Salafism is that of the followers of Wahhabism
in Saudi Arabia. Indeed, they often prefer to be
known as Salafis rather than Wahhabis, which is
a derogatory term usually used by outsiders. They
read the Quran as the literal word of God, and
maintain that it, together with the sunna, should
be the basis of the sharia (sacred law), which is
to be strictly followed in all matters. They accept
ijtihad , but interpret it conservatively. Wahhabi

^ 602 Salafism

Salafis are also vehemently opposed to Shiism, as
well as Sufism.

These two branches of Salafism, the modernist
and the Wahhabist, have evolved in different and
complex ways during the 20th and early 21st cen-
turies. The modernists have emphasized reforms
that were intended to reconcile religion with
science and modernity. They have called for mod-
ernizing the educational system (but still keep-
ing Islamic subjects in the curriculum), creating
democratic governments, and liberating women
from shackles of tradition. In promoting these
ideals, Salafists portrayed the Islam's civilizational
heritage as superior to that of the West, redefin-
ing traditional concepts in conformity with their
progressive outlook. In their publications consul-
tation between a ruler and his advisors (shura)
became parliamentary DEMOCRACY, the consensus
of jurists in matters of law (ijmaa) became pub-
lic opinion, and swearing allegiance to a ruler
(bayaa) became the right to vote.

Although modernist Salafism was opposed by
traditionalist Sunni ulama, it spread rapidly from
Egypt to other Arab countries, and eventually to
non-Arab ones. In Algeria it was promoted by
Abd al-Hamid ibn Badis (d. 1940), a religious
scholar and a leader of the resistance against the
French colonialists. A Tunisian Salafist, Abd al-
Aziz al-Thaalibi (d. 1944), founded the Destour
Party, which sought to create a constitutional
democracy in that country. Salafism also devel-
oped roots in Morocco. As part of their political
activism, Salafists in these countries campaigned
against Sufi orders, which they thought were det-
rimental to their reformist agenda. In Indonesia
the Muhammadiyah reformist movement was
founded in 1912 by Ahmad Dahlan (d. 1923),
a Javanese scholar who had been influenced by
Abduh. Egyptian Salafism has also been credited
with influencing the religious outlook of the Mus-
lim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-i Islami in lndo-
Pakistan, although the influence of the Deoband
school was greater in the case of the latter.

Wahhabi Salafists are closely allied to Saudi
rulers and, unlike the modernist Salafis, they

have become embedded in the authoritarian gov-
ernment of Saudi state that was created by Abd
al-Aziz ibn Saud (d. 1953) in the first decades of
the 20th century. They control the judiciary and
education, and are in charge of strictly enforcing
public morality in accordance with their conser-
vative understanding of the sharia. This official
Wahhabi Salafism, because it is so closely tied to
a regime that holds great wealth from its OIL reve-
nues and because millions of pilgrims visit Mecca
and Medina each year, has had widespread influ-
ence on Muslims around the world. Its rigid ide-
ology of rule by religious law has inspired violent
Sunni jihad movements like Hamas in Palestine,
Egyptian Islamists, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and
similar groups elsewhere. The close connection of
Wahhabi Salafism with the Saudi state, however,
has also undermined its legitimacy in the eyes of
many, including Saudi dissidents. These critics and
opponents view the royal family as authoritarian,
corrupt, and materialistic, and resent its close tics
with the United States and its allies. Some of these
opponents have been pushing for gradual democ-
ratization and greater respect for HUMAN RIGHTS,
like modernist Salafis have done elsewhere. Others,
however, have embraced what some have called
neo-Wahhabism, and call for the violent overthrow
of the Saudi state and the establishment of one that
they maintain truly conforms to the sharia. The
seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 was
an early manifestation of this militant trend. It also
contributed to the shaping of Usama bin La dins
worldview and the creation of al-Qaidas global ter-
rorist network in the 1980s and 90s.

Sec also Companions of the Prophet; Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab, Muhammad; Islamism; al-Qaida; Rashid
Rida, Muhammad; Saudi Arabia; Usama bin Ladin.

Further reading: Asad Abukhalil, The Battle for Saudi
Arabia: Royalty , Fundamentalism, and Global Power
(New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004); Malcolm H.
Kerr. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories
of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1966); Charles Kurzman,
Modernist Islam, 1840-1940: A Sourcebook (Oxford:

Satan 603

Oxford University Press. 2002); Madawi al-Rasheed,
Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New
Generation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007); Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism,
Salafiyya , and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001).

sal am See Islam; pbuh.

salat See prayer.

samaa See music; qawwali.

Sanusi Sufi Order See Libya; renewal and

REFORM MOVEMENTS.

Satan

In Islam the devil is called both Satan (Arabic shay-
tan) and Iblis. These names occur in the Quran
and throughout Islamic religious literature. The
two names developed out of pre-Islamic beliefs
about evil beings and demons that circulated in
Middle Eastern Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian
communities. Zoroastrianism, which was the state
religion of Iran prior to the Islamic conquests of
the seventh century, held that the universe was
locked in a struggle between two supreme beings
and their armies of angels and demons. The two
deities are Ahura Mazda (Lord Wisdom), the
benevolent creator god of goodness, light, and
knowledge, and Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), the god
of evil, darkness, and ignorance. At the end of time,
with human assistance, Angra Mainyu and his
minions would be defeated and goodness would
reign. Scholars think that the Zoroastrian idea of
an evil adversary of the good creator god may have
influenced the theologies of other religions in the
Middle East, including Judaism and Christianity.

The Hebrew word satan (accuser) occurs a
number of times in the Old Testament, usually in
reference to a human who acts as an adversary or
accuser (for example, 1 Samuel 29:4). It is in the
later books, however, that the word is used for a

supramundane being, particularly in Job 1-2 and
Zechariah 3. There he is depicted as an angelic
member of God's heavenly court who raises accu-
sations against human beings because of their
sins. These books of the Hebrew Bible were writ-
ten between the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E., at
the time of the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews
of the Kingdom of Judah (586-537 B.c.E.) and the
reign of Persian Achaemenid dynasty (648-330
B.C.E. ). This dynasty supported Zoroastrianism and
allowed Babylonian Jews to return to Jerusalem
to rebuild their temple that the Babylonians had
destroyed in 586, providing an opportunity for
Zoroastrian beliefs to influence Jewish ones. The
association of Satan with the serpent in the story
of Adam and Eve does not occur in the Hebrew
Bible; this association was made in later Christian
writings. Satan as the enemy of God makes his
first appearance in the Christian New Testament
in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. These
writings identify him as a “tempter” (Matthew
4:3), “the prince of demons” (Matthew 12:24),
and “the evil one” (1 John 5:18). He is also called
the devil ( diabolos accuser; for example, Matthew
4:1), which is the word used for Satan in the Scp-
tuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
The Book of Revelation calls Satan the “ancient
serpent*' and “the devil,” who will first be bound
by the angel of God for a thousand years, thrown
into hell for a thousand years, then released in the
last days before the Final Judgment (Rev. 20).

The two main stories involving Satan in the
Quran are the ones about his rebellion against
God and about his temptation of Adam and Eve
in paradise. In the first of these (related in Q 2:34;
7:11; 15:31; 17:61; 18:50; 20:116; 38:74), God
commands the angels to prostrate themselves to
Adam when he is created. Satan refuses, unlike
the others, and is expelled from paradise for
his disobedience. Now called an ungrateful dis-
believer (kafir), God allows him to become an
enemy and a deceiver of humanity until the Judg-
ment Day. The righteous, however, will be able
to successfully resist his efforts to misguide and
harm them. This story is not in the Bible, but a

‘ CtfS3 606 Saudi Arabia

sparked a controversy of global proportions. It
aggravated relations between Muslims and non-
Muslims, as well as between pious Muslims and
secular ones, since Rushdie was himself a Muslim
more by heritage than conviction. The book was
not so much about Muhammad and the Satanic
Verses incident per se, but it did contain passages
that were interpreted to be blasphemies against
the Prophet and his wives. Demonstrations against
the book irrupted in Bradford, England (January
14, 1989), Bombay, Islamabad, Pakistan (Febru-
ary 12), and India (February 24). In Iran, Ayatol-
lah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (advisor)'
ruling based on the sharia) on February 14, 1989,
that called for his death. Khomeini exploited the
incident to revitalize Iranian popular support for
his revolutionary government, which was just end-
ing a long, costly war with Iraq. He may also have
been personally offended by derogatory passages in
Rushdies book that talk about a puritanical "IMAM,
Khomeini himself. As a consequence, Rushdie was
forced to go into hiding for nearly 10 years. Kho-
meini died in 1989, but the fatwa was reaffirmed by
the Iranian government in 2005. Rushdie, mean-
while has kept busy with writing more novels and
making numerous public appearances.

See also blasphemy; goddess; tafsir.

Further reading: Shahab Ahmed, The Problem of the
Satanic Verses and the Formation of Islamic Orthodoxy
(forthcoming); Lisa Appignancsi and Sara Maitland,
eds., The Rushdie File (London: Fourth Estate, 1989);
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (London: Viking
Penguin, 1988); W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at
Mecca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953).

Saudi Arabia (Official name: Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia)

Named after the dynasty that rules it, Saudi Ara-
bia is one of the most powerful nations in the
Middle East. It is has an area of 756,785 square
miles (about one-fifth the size of the United
States), a population of 28.1 million people (2008
estimate), and the world's largest OIL reserves.
The birthplace of Islam, the home of Mecca and

Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam, and host
to millions of pilgrims every year, Saudi Arabia
has great religious importance within the Muslim
world. It also occupies a position of geographic
importance, bordering both the Persian Gulf and
the Red Sea, as well as Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait
to the north, Oman and Yemen to the south, and
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east.
Saudi Arabia occupies most of the Arabian Pen-
insula. Along the Red Sea coast lie the regions of
Hijaz and Asir. Much of the center of Saudi Ara-
bia is an arid rocky plateau known as the Najd.
Along the Persian Gulf coast lies the Hasa Plain.
Other important regions include the deserts of
Al-Nafud, Al-Dahna, and the Rub al-Khali. Saudi
Arabia’s major cities arc Mecca and Medina in the
Hijaz, Riyadh in the Najd, and the tri-city region
of Dammam, al-Khubar, and Dharan along the
Gulf coast in the east. Its indigenous population
is overwhelmingly Arab, but it has a significant
number of foreign workers from all over the
world, including the United States. The state reli-
gion is based on a puritanical form of Sunni Islam
known as Wahhabism, but there is a sizeable Shii
minority population of about 1 1 percent (2005
estimate) in the eastern region of the country,
along the Gulf coast.

Because much of the Arabian Peninsula con-
sists of desert, the first permanent settlements in
the region were along the coasts of the Red Sea
and the Persian Gulf. These towns soon became
active in trading between the rich civilizations of
Egypt to the west and the Tigris-Euphratcs region
to the east, which brought prosperity to some
areas, particularly along the southwestern coast.
As the development of camel caravans increased
trade across the peninsula, urban centers also
appeared in the interior regions. Outside the cit-
ies, most inhabitants of the region were nomadic
tribes. The northern area, where the archaeologi-
cal site of Madam Salih is located, was once home
to the Nabateans, an ancient Arab trading culture
that extended northward into Jordan.

About 613 C.E., Muhammad ibn Abd Allah
first began preaching the message of Islam in

^ 608 sawm

made it possible to project its influence and conser-
vative Islamic doctrines around the world.

During the cold war years, Saudi Arabia devel-
oped a close relationship with the United States
as a bulwark against the spread of Soviet influ-
ence and leftist movements in the Middle East. It
played a leading role in the creation of the Muslim
World League (founded in 1962) and the Orga-
nization of the Islamic Conference (founded in
1969), both of which exist to promote global Mus-
lim unity. It has also taken a strong stand against
the spread of revolutionary Iranian Shiism in the
Gulf region, and supported Iraq in its 1980-88
war with Iran. In 1990-91, however, Saudi Arabia
joined a large international coalition of forces, led
by the United States, to expel Iraq from neighbor-
ing Kuwait. It also joined with the United States
and Pakistan in the 1980s to aid the Afghan muja-
hidin in their war against the Soviet Union, which
had occupied Afghanistan in 1978.

Saudi Arabia has made great strides toward
educating its people, both men and women, since
the 1970s. It has 20 public universities and more
than 24,000 schools. Many members of the royal
family and the middle class have received their
college educations abroad in the United States and
Britain. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has had to
balance its conservative Islamic tradition, based
on sharia law, with internal pressure for reform.
Several domestic opposition movements have
developed, while others are based abroad. These
groups have called for a variety of reforms, par-
ticularly with regard to democratization, human
rights reform, and social justice. The lives of
Saudi women are strictly controlled, but in 1990
a number of university women publicly protested
the ban that prohibits women from driving. In
2008 the government agreed to some changes in
rights for women, including a decree that allows
women to enter a hotel without a chaperone; the
government has also agreed to lift the driving ban,
but no official decree has yet been issued.

Saudi Arabia must also deal with the question
of religious violence and terrorism. In 1979 a
group of rebels, following a Saudi they believed to

be the promised MAHDI, seized the Sacred Mosque
in Mecca after the bajj and called for an end to
Saudi rule. They were opposed to the sweeping
modernization programs that the government
had launched in the 1970s. The rebels could be
removed only by force, with significant loss of life.
The event left the Saudi kingdom greatly shaken.
Later, in September 2001, many of the hijackers
involved in the attacks on New York and Wash-
ington were Saudi nationals. Usama bin Ladin, the
leader of the al-Qaida organization that conducted
these attacks, was the son of the country's foremost
contractor, Muhammad bin Ladin (d. 1967), who
had founded the company that built much of Saudi
Arabia's modern infrastructure. Although Usama
had assisted the Saudi government in Afghanistan
in the 1 980s, he was stripped of his Saudi national-
ity in 1 994 because of his opposition to the govern-
ment's close relationship with the United States. In
particular, he was opposed to the stationing of U.S.
troops in the Muslim holy land. Beginning in 2003
suicide bombers and militants suspected of having
links to al-Qaida carried out, or attempted to carry
out, a number of attacks in Saudi Arabia; most of
those killed were Saudi nationals.

See also Bedouin; communism; Faysal ibn
Abd al-Aziz al-Saud; Gulf states; Gulf Wars;
Hashimite dynasty; renewal and reform move-
ments; Shiism.

Juan E. Campo and Kate O'Halloran

Further reading: Paul Aarts and Gcrd Nonncman, eds.,
Saudi Arabia in the Balance: Political Economy , Society, For-
eign Affairs (New York: New York University Press, 2006);
Christine Moss Helms. The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia: Evo-
lution of Political Identity (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins
University Press: London: Croom Helm, 1981); Madawi
al-Rashced. A History of Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2002); Mai Yamani, Changed
Identities: The Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi
Arabia (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs,
2000); Ayman al-Yassini. Religion and State in the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985).

sawm See FASTING.

61 0 secularism

times), astronomy held a prominent place on the
scientific scene. Rulers sponsored the construc-
tion of observatories and large observation instru-
ments and employed scientists such as al-Battani
(d. 929), al-Khayyam (d. 1123), and al-Tusi (d.
1274) to construct astronomical tables and keep
time. In medicine and pharmaceutics the Qanun of
Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037) continued to serve as
a major reference until the 18th century. All across
the empire, public hospitals were constructed to
cure the ill and train new doctors. In mathematics
al-Khawarizmi inaugurated a new science, algebra.
In optics Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1039) was the first to
use the experimental method in science. Trying to
transform cheap metals into gold, Arabo-lslamic
alchemists such as Jabir ibn Hayyan discovered
new substances and devised ways for making
them. Scientific teaching was mainly dispensed
from private homes and hospitals where teachers
would certify that a student "read" (studied) this
or that major book with him.

See also alchemy.

A. Nazir Atassi

Further reading: Toby E. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern
Science: Islam, China, and the West, 2d cd. (London:
Cambridge University Press, 2003); Roshdi Rashcd, cd.,
Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science (London:
Routlcdgc, 1996); A. I. Sabra, Optics, Astronomy and
Logic: Studies in Arabic Science and Philosophy (Hamp-
shire, England: Variorum. 1994).

secularism

Secularism denotes a relationship between religion
and the state born out of modern Anglo-Atlan-
tic conceptions of social, religious and political
AUTHORITY. Although it has become a prominent
political idea worldwide, it is important to note
that secularism is rooted in a particular context
and reflects both the theological developments
and the predominance of a scientific outlook
toward political, economic, and social organiza-
tion that developed in medieval, Renaissance, and
Enlightenment Europe. Thus, while secularism
has made its way into political and religious ideas

across the world, its exact meaning in those differ-
ent contexts is sometimes difficult to discern.

There are two dominant models and under-
standings of secularism in contemporary Western
European and North American societies. One, the
strict disestablishment of religion, is found in the
United States and stresses that the state may not
ally itself with any particular religious tradition.
In this case, it is important to note, however, that
individual decisions made by the government
often reflect the tradition in which most law- and
policymakers have been shaped, namely, Christi-
anity. The second model, found in particular in
France and Turkey, is often called laicism. In it,
the state oversees and regulates religion, working
to enforce a privatized understanding of religion,
thus removing religion from public visibility.
These two models reflect the history of the differ-
ent rationales for secularism: on the one hand, the
protection of religion from the hands of the state
and, on the other hand, the protection of the state
from the hands of religion.

During the 19th century and into the 20th
century, colonized societies in the Middle East and
South Asia began to grapple with the issue of sec-
ularism, often as a result of legal, economic, and
political reforms instituted by colonial authorities
and sympathetic local elites. Vigorous debates
surrounded the effects of these secular reforms,
debates that had a tremendous influence on the
character of modern states that emerged from
colonial control in the early to mid-20th century,
such as Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and India.

Many of the conflicts that have racked these
states since independence, from the partition
of India/PAKISTAN to conflicts between Islamists
and both nominally secular and self-consciously
Islamic states throughout the Middle East, have
resulted in part from disagreements about the
proper role of religion — in general or in regard to
specific traditions — in the public sphere. Today,
many opponents of secularism stress the historic
particularity of secularisms origins, thus raising
questions about the portability of the idea from
its original context, dominated by Christian-

' Css ^ 612 scripture

the expulsion in 1492, three categories of Jews
had emerged: conversos (Sp., “converts'), mar-
ranos (Sp., derogatory term for crypto-Jews, who
converted while maintaining Jewish practices in
secret), and those who refused to convert. Some
emigrants established Portuguese-speaking com-
munities in Western Europe, while most resettled
in the Ottoman Empire, where they continued to
speak Arabic and Ladino.

The Ottoman SULTAN welcomed this mass
immigration of talented Sephardic Jews, whose
connections to Europe and allegiance to the Otto-
mans made them exceptional diplomats, transla-
tors, and purveyors of European medicine and
military technology. Sephardic communities, such
as those of Salonika and Istanbul, were famous
for their printing presses and academies. Their
magnificent yeshivas and synagogues are distinct
from Ashkenazic buildings, and in fact the syna-
gogue service and unique rituals also reflect local
customs and Islamic influences.

The decline of Ottoman Jewry accompanied the
decline of the empire itself. The TANZIMAT reforms
of 1839 attempted to curtail foreign intervention by
bringing minorities under the control of the cen-
tral government. However, the Damascus Affair of
1840, in which the Syrian Jewish community was
charged with a blood libel, provoked international
Jewish defense efforts and increased demands by
Britain and France for Ottoman reforms. This
international solidarity was the catalyst for the Alli-
ance Israelite Universelle, begun in 1860 by liberal
French Jews. This program introduced Eastern
Jews to Western ideas and values in an attempt to
achieve full citizenship for the Jews of the Ottoman
Empire. The Sephardic community split between
supporting the alliance and adopting the Zion-
ist position that emancipation was possible only
within a Jewish state.

After the victors of World War 1 split apart the
former Ottoman Empire, the majority populations
persecuted the Sephardic ethnic and religious
minorities. World War 11 decimated the Sephardic
community. Those few who survived emigrated
primarily to Israel, France, and North America
in the following years. Each community shows

evidence of maintaining a distinct Sephardic cul-
tural and religious identity while at the same time
assimilating into the broader community.

See also Andalusia; Almohad dynasty; Istanbul;
Judaism and Islam; Ottoman dynasty; refugees.

Jessica Andruss

Further reading: Shlomo Deshen and Walter P. Zenner,
eds., Jews among Muslims: Communities in the Precolo-
nial Middle East (New York: New York University Press,
1996); Daniel J. Elazar, The Other Jews: The Sephardim
Today (New York: Basic Books, 1989); Jane S. Gerber,
The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience
(New York: The Free Press, 1992); Norman A. Stillman,
The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern limes (New York: Jew-
ish Publication Society, 1991).

scripture See holy books.

sermon

Islam developed three homiletic traditions: the
khutba (sermon), pious exhortation (mawiza, waaz t
or tadhkir ), and homiletic storytelling ( qasas ).

The khutba belongs to a larger genre of public
oratory that predates Islam and was performed
in a variety of ceremonial contexts, including
official receptions, war declarations, and wedding
speeches. In Islam, the canonical or liturgical
sermon (khutba shariyya) forms a prescribed part
of ritual observances, notably the Friday congre-
gational prayer, the two feast days, and communal
rogations for rainfall. It also became customary to
perform liturgical sermons during other festivals
and to exhort JIHAD.

Islamic legal sources stipulate that the canoni-
cal sermon comply with the liturgical condi-
tions that Muhammad reportedly instituted in the
seventh century. For example, on Fridays, the
khutba must precede the communal prayer, but
in all other rituals the prayer comes first. After
the call to prayer, the preacher ( khatib ) should
arise, grasp a sword or staff (pre-Islamic symbols
of authority), and ascend the pulpit steps right
foot first. He pronounces two sermons standing,

614 Shaarawi, Muhammad al-

her son and daughter. However, in 1909 Shaarawi
entered a new period of activism and leadership.
She founded a secular womens philanthropist
organization dedicated to providing medical care
to poor women and children, and she organized a
series of lectures for and by women. Five years later
she founded two additional organizations similarly
aimed at meeting the needs of different classes
of women: the Womens Refinement Association
and the Ladies Literary Improvement Society. The
activities ol these years prepared her well for her
next role as leader in the nationalist struggle for
independence. In 1919 she organized the first
women’s demonstration against British rule. She
worked closely with her husband and other leaders
of the nationalist Wafd Party, and she was named
president of the party's Womens Central Commit-
tee. However, upon the granting of limited inde-
pendence from Britain and the establishment of a
constitution in 1923, Sharawi and other women
activists were disappointed. Their demands for
suffrage were not met, nor were womens rights sig-
nificantly improved under the new constitution.

Thereafter her activism became more markedly
feminist in character, and the same year she helped
to found the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU). At
the end of her return journey from an international
women's conference, which she attended as the
EFU delegate, she publicly removed her face veil
as an act of protest. This remains the act for which
she is best known in Egypt today. In some ways, the
EFU served to reflect secular Egyptian nationalism
as Christian and Muslim middle- and upper-class
women worked together to achieve common aims.
Their concerns included securing womens rights
to participate at all levels of Egyptian politics as
well as in the labor market and the educational sys-
tem, and demanding reforms to the personal status
codes. The members of the EFU continued to par-
ticipate in the struggle for full independence from
Britain. Shaarawi remained especially interested in
providing health care to poor women and children
throughout her life, as evidenced by the work of
the EFU and her private philanthropy.

Shaarawi utilized various methods to advance
her feminist causes, including founding two jour-

nals, the French language EEgypticnne in 1925 and
the Arabic language Al-Misriyya in 1937. She was
also a strong supporter of international womens
rights movements, serving on the executive board
of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance for
many years. She was instrumental in founding the
Arab Feminist Union in 1945, and she served as
that organization's first president. She remained
an ardent Egyptian nationalist throughout her life
and was awarded the states highest decoration
in 1947, the year she died. Shaarawi s legacy is
widely respected in Egypt today. She is remem-
bered for having laid the foundation for women
to lead more publicly productive lives.

See also human rights; secularism.

Shauna Huffaker

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in
Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992);
Margot Badran. Feminists, Islam and the Nation: Gender
and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, N.J.: Princ-
eton University Press, 1995); Huda Shaarawi, Harem
Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879-1924)
(London: Virago Press, 1986).

Shaarawi, Muhammad al- (1911-1998)
Muslim teacher and television preacher
Al-Shaykh al-Shaarawi became famous in the
1970s as a master of Quran commentary on tele-
vision. It was not so much the profundity of his
exegesis that was attractive as it was the simplicity
of his style, which made his ideas accessible to the
wider public. By the time he died in 1998, he had
developed a huge following, where his sermons
were broadcast on television both in Egypt and
across the Arabic-speaking world.

Shaarawi played an important part in the a
wave of religious revival in Egypt in the 1970s.
During the previous period, until the death of
Jamal Abd al Nasir in 1970, Egypt’s government
had been intent on modernization and seculariza-
tion, which led to attempts to domesticate and
restrict the public role of religion. At the same
time, Nasir had ample reason to fear the challenge
posed by Islamists, especially those in the Muslim

Shamil 619

by adding **Ali is the friend of God’* (Ali wait Allah),
which affirms their belief in the preeminence of Ali
ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) as their first Imam, in addition
to their belief in God and his prophet. The shahada ,
especially the first part, is frequently used by Sufis
in their dhikr rituals. It is also a frequent subject in
Islamic calligraphy, where it is drawn in a variety
of beautiful and elaborate styles. It is frequently dis-
played in Islamic buildings, especially in mosques
and shrines, but it may also be posted in homes
and businesses. Amulets and talismans designed to
insure God's blessing and protection also make use
of the shahada.

The concept of witnessing in Islam encompasses
several additional aspects. In the Quran's statements
about Judgment Day, evildoers will be condemned
on the testimonies of virtuous people who bear
witness against them (for example Q 4:41, 159).
Witnessing is also required by the sharia in certain
cases of civil and criminal law: financial transac-
tions, wills, divorce, and execution for adultery.
However, the most important meaning of shahada,
aside from being the first pillar of Islam, is that of
martyrdom. The idea of giving up ones life for God
and religion is considered to be a form of bearing
“witness” to one's faith. The Islamic concept was
influenced by early Christianity, in which the Greek
term martyr (witness) was used for Christians who
were tortured and killed by Roman authorities.
Martyrdom is a doctrine found in both Sunni and
Shii Islam, but it has achieved an especially rich
significance within Twelve-Imam Shiism.

See also adhan ; crime and punishment; funer-
ary rituals; Sunnism.

Further reading: Constance Padwick, Muslim Devo-
tions: A Study oj Prayer-Manuals in Common Use (Lon-
don: SPCK. 1961); Andrew Rippin, Muslims: Their
Religious Beliefs and Practices. 2d ed. (London: Rout-
ledge, 2001).

shahid See MARTYRDOM,
shame See honor and shame.

Shamil (1786-1871) North Caucasus Muslim
resistance leader

Shamil was born around 1786 into a noble fam-
ily from the Avar people of southern Daghestan.
From the 1830s to 1859, Shamil was able to unite
many of the ethnically and linguistically diverse
peoples of the North Caucasus (areas now within
Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia and northeast-
ern Azerbaijan) to fight against the encroaching
Russian Empire. Shamil was a religious, political,
and military leader. Under the banner of ghazawat
(the Caucasian variant of jihad), Shamil and his
followers ( murids ) were able to inflict great dam-
age on and hold off the Russian army over the
course of a decades-long war, setting up a fledgling
Islamic state in areas under their control. Shamil's
power derived as much from religious AUTHORITY
as from military prowess, and he was able to con-
vert his religious authority, based as the leader of
the local Naqshabandi Sufi Order, into political
and military power by transforming the hierarchi-
cal religious structure of the Sufi brotherhood into
a political movement and state structure. Shamil
sought to implement strict adherence to Islamic
law, and he claimed to be chosen by God to lead
his people.

Shamil successfully employed guerrilla tactics
to keep the Russians at bay until the Russians
deployed nearly 500,000 troops and decimated
Shamil's fighters and demoralized the local popula-
tion using scorched earth tactics. He surrendered
to the Russians in 1859, but he was uncharacter-
istically treated magnanimously and sent to live
in exile in the Russian city of Kaluga. After much
correspondence, he was allowed to make the pil-
grimage to Mecca, and he died in 1871 in Medina.
With Shamil's surrender, the resistance to the Rus-
sians collapsed, only to flair up again whenever
Russian control was weak. To this day, Shamil is
held in great esteem by the population of the North
Caucasus, and his name and authority are evoked
by those leading the current fight in Chechnya.

See also Central Asia and the Caucasus;

RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENT.

David Reeves

^ 620 sharia

Further reading: Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance
to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and
Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1904); Anna Zelkina,
In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi Response to the
Russian Advance in the North Caucasus (New York: New
York University Press. 2000).

sharia (Arabic: path to a source of water;
also Persian and Urdu: shariat)

Sharia is the law of Islam based on Gods sovereign
commandments and prohibitions as conveyed by
the Quran, and on the sunna of Muhammad and
his Companions, as embodied in the hadith. It is
often identified with another concept of Islamic
law — jurisprudence (fiqh). Thus, it can be defined
as both the infallible revealed law of God and the
fallible, ongoing efforts undertaken by human
beings, particularly the ulama and Muslim judges,
to interpret revelation and apply it to particular
sociohistorical contexts. Like the understanding
of revealed law in rabbinic Judaism, Muslims have
for centuries seen the sharia as a process wherein
jurists and judges debated legal rulings and inter-
pretations in their efforts to apply revelation to all
areas of human conduct. They thought that sharia
should be relevant not only to matters of worship,
but also to family life, DIETARY laws, business trans-
actions, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, warfare, dress,
hospitality, and even the exchange of greetings.
Also, just as following a path to water (the literal
meaning of sharia) entails the nourishment of the
body, following God's sharia promises material and
spiritual benefits to Muslims. It is the way to win
God's blessing in this world and salvation in the
AFTERLIFE. In actual practice, the sharia has under-
gone a complex history of development, interact-
ing with other legal traditions and local CUSTOMARY
LAW. One of the chief duties of Muslim ruler was to
uphold the sharia, while the ulama and judges had
the responsibility of studying it, teaching it, and
interpreting it. The centers for their activities were
the madrasas and the courts in all the major cities
found in lands under Muslim rule.

Flistorically, the sharia has become embodied
in different traditions of Islamic jurisprudence

known as madhhabs (schools, ways). In Sunni
Islam there are four madhhabs: the Malikis, the
Hanafis, the Shafiis, and the Hanbalis. These
schools are not religious sects with different theo-
logical doctrines, however. Since the 10th— 11th
century all four have accepted a system of juris-
prudence based on four “roots" (usul al-fiqh). Two
of these arc based in revelation — the Quran and
sunna. Two are based on methods of interpreting
revelation — IJMAA (consensus) and qiyas (ana-
logical reasoning). To a greater or lesser degree all
schools have allowed for the derivation of indi-
vidual legal opinions based on reason ( ijtihad ),
but reason has often been circumscribed by the
forces of tradition and imitation ( taqlid ) of the
legal authorities of the past. Though the Shia have
tended to follow a more devotional form of Islam
wherein the Imams are held in higher esteem
than the law, they have also developed their own
legal traditions. These bear close resemblance to
the Sunni legal traditions. The legal tradition in
Twelve-Imam Shiism is known as the Jaafari Legal
School, named after Jaafar al-Sadiq (d. 765), the
sixth Imam. It developed two chief branches: the
Akhbari School and the Usuli School. The Ismaili
Shia, though often known for their esoteric inter-
pretations of Islam, also follow the sharia, but
under the guidance of their Imam and his agents.
In the distant past there were extremist Shii sects,
the chulat , which were believed to have claimed
that the sharia had been abrogated.

Today, the sharia is understood in Muslim
nations variously as a basis for law within the
framework of a predominantly secular legal system
modeled after those of western Europe and Britain,
or as applicable to only limited areas of law, espe-
cially marriage, divorce, and inheritance law. This
is one of the results of colonial rule in Muslim
lands during the 19th and 20th centuries. Where
it has occurred — in countries such as Libya, Egypt,
Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan, and Malaysia — a system
of dual courts exists to accommodate the two
traditions of law. Alternately, in countries such as
Saudi Arabia and Iran the sharia stands in ideo-
logical opposition to Euro-American secular law.

Shiism 623

astray. Female Sufi leaders and spirit mediums
are called by the feminine form of this word —
shaykha. Since the 15th century, the most highly
esteemed Muslim scholars and mystics have been
recognized by the honorific title shaykh al-Islam
(Shaykh of Islam). It was also used as an official
title in the Ottoman Empire for a high-ranking
religious scholar appointed by the SULTAN. Based
in Istanbul, he functioned as a MUFTI, issuing advi-
sory rulings based on the sharia regarding issues
of state as well as private matters.

The term continues to be used in modern con-
texts in a variety of ways. For example, Muslim
authorities in Saudi Arabia who arc descended
from Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92),
the founder of the Wahhabi sect, are called Al
al-Shaykh (Family of the Shaykh) in his honor.
The rulers of Arab nations in the Persian Gulf
region (Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates,
and, until recently, Bahrain) are called shaykhs
and their countries arc known as shaykhdoms.
Whether the term applies to a tribal authority,
religious scholar, Sufi master, revivalist leader, or
head of state, its bearer is due respect and defer-
ence by others, especially those with lower status.
The equivalent to shaykh in Persian is pir, with a
comparable range of meanings, but especially in
Sufi contexts. It is used in eastern Muslim lands
such as Iran, Pakistan, and India.

See also Gulf States; m urshid; Ottoman
Dynasty.

Further reading: Robert A. Fcrnca. Shaykh and Efendi :
Changing Patterns of Authority among the El Shabana of
Southern Iraq (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1970); Leonard Lcwisohn, trans., “Hasan Palasi's
Encounter with Shaykh Khujuji." In Windows on the
House oj Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious
Life , edited by John Renard, 375—383 (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press. 1998); George Makdisi, The Rise
of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West
(Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1971).

shaytan See Satan.

Shiism

In studying the history of religions, scholars have
noted that religious traditions as a rule develop
alternative movements and sectarian expressions.
Judaism, which has had alternative forms in the
past, today has Orthodox, Reform, and Conser-
vative branches. Christianity, known for having
many sects and denominations throughout its
history, today has Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and
Protestant branches. Hindu devotionalism, known
as bhakti , is characterized by a threefold division
into traditions centered on the gods Vishnu and
Shiva, and the Goddess (Devi). The Buddhist
community, or sangha, developed three major
doctrinal traditions — Theravada, Mahayana, and
Vajrayana. Islam, though often identified with
the ideal of a unified community of all believers
known as the UMMA, is no different. The primary
division it has is the one that exists between
Sunnism, the majority tradition, and Shiism, an
umbrella term for the minority tradition.

The term Shiism is used by modern scholars
of Islamic Studies to describe not one but several
important Islamic sectarian traditions and move-
ments that have appeared in Islam's history. It is
based on the Arabic word shia, which means party
or faction, and it was first used with reference to
the group of Muslims who favored the candidacy
of Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661) and his descen-
dants as the legitimate successors to the prophet
Muhammad, the leader of the Muslim community,
upon his sudden death in 632. This group was
called shiat Ali, the party of Ali. Unlike other
men in the early Muslim community, Ali was
Muhammad's closest male relative, his paternal
cousin and son-in-law by marriage to his daugh-
ter Fatima. He staked his claim as a candidate for
leadership on the basis of kinship, and, according
to the Shia, Muhammad's declaration at Ghadir
Khumm that Ali was the master (mawla) of those
who also regarded Muhammad as their master.
However, many of the influential members of the
community favored choosing a leader on the basis
of reputation and the consensus of leading males.
This view prevailed at the time of Muhammad's

Shiism 625

Shii Populations

Tripoli
\ Beirut^

Jabal Amil

Cairo

Samarra ^
Baghdad / Kaziman

Karbala
Najaf •

Gurgan

Bukhara

Mashad

o a N o_

Tehran

Sabzivar

Kashan 0

Balkh

Herat

Medina

Shiraz

Srinagar

Mecca

Lahore

Medieval Shii city

Modern Shii city

Cities important in both
medieval and modern times

Important Shii centers of
pilgrimage

Shii population, 950-1500

Delhi

Karachi

Luckn

Karbala

Calcutta

Bombay

(Mumbai)

Shii population, 1500-present

Note: Contemporary boundaries are
provided for reference.

Hyderabad

© Infobase Publishi

and they believe that the 12th Imam, Muham-
mad al-Muntazar (b. 868), entered concealment
as a boy in 874. His concealment will end only
when God allows, just before Judgment Day. The
Twelve-Imam Shia follow their own legal tradi-
tion, which is divided into Akhbari (traditional-
ist) and Usuli (rationalist) Schools. They now
comprise an estimated 90 percent of the worlds
Shii population, and they are majorities in Iran
(89 percent), Iraq (60 percent), Bahrain (70 per-
cent), and Azerbaijan (85 percent). There are also
Twelve-Imam Shii minority populations in Leba-
non, eastern Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United
Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan,

and India, as well as sizeable immigrant commu-
nities in Europe and the United States.

The second sect Shii is known as Ismaili SHIISM
(also called the Seveners and the Sabiyya). The
Ismailis recognize Ismail (d. 760), Jaafar al-Sadiqs
first son, as the rightful seventh Imam instead of
Musa al-Kazim, as claimed by the Twelve-Imam
Shia. The Fatimid DYNASTY that ruled in North
Africa and Egypt from 909 to 1171 claimed to be
caliph-imams descended from Ismail, and they
gave rise to the two major Ismaili sects known as
the Mustalis and Nizaris. Fatimid missionaries,
known as dais , spread the doctrines of Ismaili Shi-
ism to Yemen, Syria, Iran, and India. Because of

630 Sokoto Caliphate

liberty that their masters grant them. For some
infractions, the penalties for slaves are actually
lighter than those for free individuals. The law
prescribes freedom for certain slaves upon their
master's death, such as the urnin walad , who has
borne her master's child, or the mudabbar , ; to
whom he has promised liberation.

Slavery in the Islamic world has historically
been milder than the plantation slavery practiced
in the Americas in the 18th and 19th centuries.
While forced labor in fields and mines is not
unknown, Islamic slavery has tended to favor
domestic servants, often treated as members of
the family, or slave armies, preferred owing to
their personal loyalty to the sultan. In fact, slaves
sometimes rose to positions of extensive authority.
In slave dynasties, such as the medieval Egyptian
Mamluks, soldiers originally from the slave class
actually oversaw governments. On the other hand,
Islamic slavery was not without its brutal episodes.
Muslim slave traders in Africa were notable for
their harshness and for disregarding legal niceties
by including free Muslims among their victims.

During the modern era, Muslim countries
took steps to abolish slavery, largely in response
to pressure from European nations. Modernist
Muslim scholars reinterpreted the Quran to sup-
port the abolition of slavery. They argued that
Muhammad (d. 632) tolerated a practice (slavery)
that God intended to phase out over time as con-
trary to the basic quranic principles of liberty and
equality. However, many Muslim elites resisted
abandoning a privilege granted them in Islamic
law, and slavery has been difficult to eliminate in
the Islamic world. It continues to be practiced in
rural areas and under repressive Islamist govern-
ments, such as in Sudan.

See also harem; human rights; Janissary;

MAMLUK.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: Humphrey J. Fisher, Slavery in the
History of Muslim Black Africa (New York: New York
University Press, 2001); Murray Gordon, Slavery in
the Arab World (New York: New Amsterdam. 1992);
Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: A

Historical Enquiry (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1992); Shaun E. Marmon, ed., Slavery in the Islamic
Middle East (Princeton, N.J.: Marcus Weiner, 1999).

Sokoto Caliphate

The Sokoto Caliphate was a 19th-century Islamic
state in Hausaland (modern-day northern Nige-
ria), founded by the preacher and jihadist Shehu
Usman Dan Fodio (1754-1817). The Shehu with-
drew from and launched JIHAD against the sultan-
ate of Gobir in 1804, in direct imitation of the
prophet Muhammad's jihad against the Arabs of
Mecca. Spreading throughout Hausaland, dan
Fodio's jihad gained widespread support among
Fulani tribesmen and led to the establishment of
the largest independent African state during the
19th century. The city of Sokoto in northwest-
ern Nigeria was designated capitol of the Fulani
state, which united a region that had been divided
among city-states for hundreds of years. Dan
Fodio established a systematic government, with
ultimate AUTHORITY in the hands of a CALIPH, and
local authority divided between emirs, who were
responsible for governing specific regions (or
emirates). The first caliph was Dan Fodio’s son
and military commander, Muhammad Bello, who
succeeded his father in 1817. An electoral college
made up of prominent officials chose later caliphs
from among the Shehus descendants.

Government in the CALIPHATE of Sokoto was
based upon a classical Muslim model, a hierarchi-
cal system of authority, with ministries and titles
derived from Islamic history. Islamic law (sharia)
was held to be the law of the land, interpreted
according to the Maliki Legal School. Supported
by an active commercial network and thriving
agricultural production, the caliphate was fairly
prosperous for much of the century. Boasting a
number of accomplished scholars, the Sokoto
administration placed an emphasis upon educa-
tion, which even extended to women at times (for
instance, the Shehus daughter, Nana Asm'u, was
a famous scholar who promoted education for
women). Despite its decentralized government,
the state held together largely due to its prosper-

soul and spirit 631

ous and efficient administrative structure and out
of respect for the Shehus teaching and the author-
ity of his family. During the last decade of the
19th century, however, the Sokoto Caliphate was
exposed to growing pressure from French colonial
power to the north and British power to the south.
It was eventually conquered by Sir Frederick
Lugard, who established British authority over the
region in 1903.

See also colonialism; jihad movements; West
Africa.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: R. A. Adelcye, Power and Diplomacy
in Northern Nigeria, 1804-1906 (London: Longman
Group Limited, 1971); H. A. S. Johnston, The Fulani
Empire of Sokoto (London: Oxford University Press.
1967); Beverly B. Mack and Jean Boyd. One Womans
Jihad: Nana Asma'u, Scholar and Scribe (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2000); Ibrahccm Sulaiman.
The Islamic State and the Challenge of History (London:
Mansell Publishing, 1987).

Somalia See East Africa.

song See music; qawwau.

soul and spirit

The life force that animates the body is com-
monly known as the soul or spirit. Comparative
study shows that beliefs about the soul and spirit
vary widely, based on different ideas about what a
human being is and how humans are believed to
be related to the wider universe in both its physi-
cal and metaphysical aspects. Native classifica-
tions for the life force and its related aspects can
become quite complex and contradictory — even
within a single culture or religious tradition. It
has become associated with notions of breath, the
heart, mind, reason, blood, and body. The English
word soul is old Germanic in origin and is thought
to have originally been a translation of the ancient
Greek word psych, which means "life," “spirit," or
“consciousness." These meanings are connected

with the idea of the life breath, as is the term
spirit , which is derived from Latin. In many reli-
gions the soul or spirit is believed to be separate
from the body, having a preexistence and an after-
life and being able to leave the body temporarily
during sleep, trances, or states of ecstasy. It is also
often believed to be connected with beings such
as sacred ancestors, deities, and a universal spirit
or cosmic energy.

Islamic beliefs about the soul and spirit were
first expressed in the Quran and later elaborated
and systematized by theologians, philosophers,
and mystics. These beliefs differ, beginning with
a significant shift less than two centuries after
Muhammad's death in 632. Nevertheless, a degree
of learned consensus was reached by theologians
and traditionalists by the 10th century. The differ-
ing views about the soul and spirit can be attrib-
uted in part to variations of belief among local
Muslim communities, sects, and movements but
are also the results of several other factors. These
include the heritage of indigenous pre-lslamic
beliefs in Arabia and the wider Middle East, the
Muslim reception of Jewish and Christian doc-
trines, and the influence of the ideas of Hellenistic
PHILOSOPHY and Neoplatonism, especially after
Greek texts were translated into Arabic during
the Abbasid Caliphate, particularly between the
eighth and 10th centuries.

The two key Arabic terms for soul and spirit in
Islam arc, respectively, nafs and ruh, both of which
are derived from Arabo-Semitic terms for “breath"
or "respiration," a requirement for life. The Hebrew
cognates arc nefesh and ruah, which occur in the
Bible. Both Arabic words occur in the Quran with
equivalent meanings but also with meanings that
differ. Nafs often denotes the “self" and is used
reflexively with reference to humans, the jinn, God,
and Satan. It is also used in the sense of “person."
Thus, the Quran states that it is God "who created
you from a single person [nafs] and made from her,
her mate, that he might find rest in her" (Q 7:189).
Nafs is a feminine noun in Arabic, so this verse
indicates that men and women originated in a sin-
gle feminine nafs (person). In several contexts the
Quran gives nafs negative meanings; it connotes

Sudan 635

Subud (abbreviation for the Sanskrit
phrase Susila Buddhi Dharma)

Subud is one of the more successful new Islamic-
inspired spiritual movements to emerge in Indo-
nesia in the 20th century. It was founded by
Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo (1901-87),
who began to receive messages from a spiritual
source as a teenager. This culminated in 1925
when he received a revelation concerning the
latihan kcjiwaan, the basic spiritual practice of
Subud. During this initial period, he studied with
various teachers, including some Sufi leaders. He
worked with the latihan for the next few years and
also went through a period of spiritual/mystical
growth. It would be eight years later, however,
before others began to practice the latihan. Thus
1933 is generally accepted as the beginning date
of the movement, which slowly spread through
the country. Initially Bapak (as his followers came
to call him) named the small group that was gath-
ering around him lima Kasunyatan.

The groups spiritual practice, latihan, involves a
gathering of members for about half an hour twice a
week. Sitting with others of their own sex (men and
women practice separately), they wait for a sponta-
neous impulse to act. Some begin to move, others
will utter sounds. These movements and utterances
vary widely. Members go through the latihan as a
catharsis-like experience, often accompanied with
the reception of some personal guidance. Depend-
ing on their life situation at any given moment, the
immediate impact may be positive or negative.

After more than a decade, Bapak introduced
the term Subud to the movement, occasioned by
the development of a more stable organization
in 1947. The new name is derived from three
Sanskrit words ( Susila Buddhi Dharma) that carry
the essence of the movement — following the will
of God, or the power of the life force that works
both within us and without. To outsiders, Subud
appears to be a completely new religion; mem-
bers, however, do not see it as such, and Bapak
noted that Subud lacks a holy book, formal teach-
ing, and sacred formula. Rather, it is a process of
surrendering to God and receiving inspiration.
Subud was limited to Indonesia until the 1950s,

when some followers of Western spiritual teacher
George Gurdjieff (d. 1949) identified Bapak as the
person their teacher had described as the coming
prophet of consciousness. They invited Bapak to
England in 1956 and a number of GurdjiefPs stu-
dents identified with him. In 1957, as she began
to participate in the movement, actress Eva Bartok
(d. 1998) experienced a much publicized physi-
cal healing. The Institute for the Comparative
Study of History, Philosophy and the Sciences at
Coombes Springs, England, founded by John G.
Bennett (d. 1974), became the point from which
Subud initially spread in the West.

Subud did not allow proselytizing or adver-
tising to assist the spread of the movement and
Bapak also counseled against charging member-
ship fees. However, as the movement spread, a
periodical, Subud News , was launched in 1959,
and a publishing house, Dharma Book Company,
founded. Today, the movement is headed by the
International Subud Committee, headquartered in
the Indonesian island of Bali, with Western head-
quarters in the United States. Its charitable arm,
Susila Dharma International, has NGO (nongov-
ernmental organization) status with the United
Nations. Subud groups are now found in some 70
countries on every continent.

See also Hinduism and Islam; Sufism.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Eva Bartok, Worth Living For (New
York: University Books, 1959); John G. Bennett, Con-
cerning Subud (New York: University Books, 1959);
Anloon Gecls, Subud and the Javanese Mystical Tradi-
tion (Richmond, England: Curzon, 1997); Robert Lyle,
Subud (Kent, England: Humanus, 1983); Matthew Barry
Sullivan, Living Religion in Subud (London: Subud Pub-
lications International, 1990).

Sudan (Republic of the Sudan; Jumhuriyat
al-Sudan; Al-Sudan)

Sudan is the largest country in Africa with an area
of 2,505,810 sq. km (slightly more than one-quar-
ter the size of the United States) and an estimated
population of 40.2 million in 2008. It is located

638 Sufi Order International

In 1926 Khan named his 11-year-old son,
Vilayat, to be his successor as head of the Sufi
Order. Following his fathers death in 1927,
Vilayat studied philosophy, psychology, and music
in Paris and Oxford and began intensive medita-
tion training under various Sufi masters in the
Middle East and India. He eventually emerged as
a legitimate successor to his father's work, though
much of the European following had reorganized
as the Sufi Movement, under Maheboob, Inayat
Khans brother. However, Vilayat rebuilt the Sufi
Order and eventually reinstated it in the United
States during the 1960s. His elforts in California
were helped by Murshid Samuel Lewis (1896-
1971), an eclectic teacher who had received ini-
tiation into several Sufi orders during a lifetime
of spiritual seeking. Lewis brought his group of
students into the Sufi Order in 1968, but some
of those students left the order in 1977 over dis-
agreements with Vilayats regulations and formed
the Sufi Islamia Ruhaniat Society.

Over the past 40 years, Pir Vilayat Khan has
become an internationally recognized spiritual
teacher who gives frequent public lectures and par-
ticipates in various religious congresses, interfaith
dialogues, meditation camps, and New Age expo-
sitions in the United States, western Europe, and
India. Pir Vilayat and Pir Zia, his son and successor,
were invited to attend the UN Peace Summit for
world spiritual and religious leaders in 2000.

The Sufi Order International's teachings gen-
erally consist of the writings of Hazrat Inayat
Khan and their further elaboration by Pir Vilayat
and Pir Zia. All three Khans teach the essential
unity of spiritual ideals across religious tradi-
tions. Pir Vilayat seeks to establish in his initiates
a “stereoscopic consciousness" that cultivates
simultaneous awareness of everyday human real-
ity and the most elevated levels of the Divine
Being. He emphasizes that the realm of ordinary
perception both reveals and veils a sublime real-
ity that is unfolding itself within and through
human life. The universe is evolving, in other
words, toward a Chardin-like Omega point. In
books such as Toward the One and Awakening: A
Sufi Experience , Pir Vilayat synthesizes prayer.

meditation, and breathing methods from different
spiritual traditions with traditional Sufi practice
with the intention of helping disciples experience
the underlying unity of all things in the Divine
Ground. All of Pir Vilayats teachings comprise a
natural outgrowth of his fathers intention to fos-
ter tolerance and mutual understanding between
East and West and between the different branches
of the Beni Israel traditions.

The present-day teaching work of the Sufi
Order International includes seminars and retreats
that focus on spiritual healing arts, meditation
practices, the spirituality of music, esoteric stud-
ies, and universal dances of peace. The Sufi Order
International is headquartered in France and the
North American headquarters arc at the Abode of
the Message, a residential Sufi community founded
in 1975 in New Lebanon, New York. There, the
former Shaker colony houses Omega Publications
and its retail outlet. Wisdoms Child Bookstore,
and Sacred Spirit Music. The Abode of the Mes-
sage hosts an annual program of spiritual retreats,
the healing arts center, and ongoing classes in
dhikr (a traditional Sufi chanting practice), der-
vish whirling, and universal worship. This latter
liturgy was developed by Inayat Khan and draws
on elements of the worlds major religions.

Additional teaching centers exist in large cities
throughout the United States and Europe, with
center and branch leaders appointed by the presi-
dent of the order. The Hope Project is a charitable
program, active in India.

On February 4, 2000, Pir Zia Inayat Khan
received the leaching mantle of Pir Vilayat in an
investiture ceremony at Hazrat Inayat Khan’s tomb
in Delhi, India. He was also elevated to the presi-
dency of the Sufi Order in North America, although
Pir Vilayat remains chairman of the board of direc-
tors. Pir Zia divides his time between the Abode of
the Message, India, and Europe. He is particularly
interested in creating stronger ties with established
Sufi orders in the Middle East and Asia and with
helping Sufism as a tradition to move in a more
universal direction. Pir Zia is committed to his
grandfather's vision of building Universal temples
that honor all religions. The Universal is currently

^ 640 Sufism

being too concerned with their reputations and the
letter of the law. Nevertheless, a degree of consen-
sus was reached between the ulama and mystics
as reflected in the writings of Abu Qasim al-Junayd
(d. 910), Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri (d. 1074), and
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), who promoted
what was called "sober" Sufism as opposed to the
“intoxicated" Sufism of figures such as Abu Yazid
al-Bistami (d. ca. 875) and Mansur al-Hallaj (d.
922). Indeed, it was common for jurists and schol-
ars to also be members of the brotherhoods. Even
one of Sufism's strongest critics, Taqiy al-Din ibn
Taymiya (d. 1328), a follower of the literalist Han-
bali Legal School, was reported to be a member of
the Qadiri Sufi Order.

The growth of Sufism was partly a reaction
against the worldly orientation taken by the Mus-
lim community in the wake of the conquest of
Middle Eastern lands in the seventh and eighth
centuries, as well as against political violence
and official corruption. Sufis benefited from the
mystical traditions of Christianity, Hinduism,
and Buddhism, and they subsequently played
a significant role in the indigenization of Islam
among the peoples living in lands governed
by Muslim rulers. They carried Islam via trade
routes into sub-Saharan Africa, India, Central
Asia, southeastern Europe and the Caucasus, and
Southeast Asia. Among the leading Sufi orders
that arose and spread across Islamdom were the
Qadiris, Suhrawardis, Rifais, Kubrawis, Shadhilis,
Mevlevis, Naqshbandis, and Bektashis. The most
famous of the Sufi orders in India is that of the
Chishtis. Each of these orders was named after its
founding Sufi master, and many of them enjoyed
the patronage of rulers and wealthy merchants.

Sufis have played a significant role in Islamic
renewal and reform movements. Two orders that
were especially active in this were the Naqshbandi
Sufi Order and the Khalwatis. The Naqshbandis,
under the leadership of Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624)
and Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762) in India, spread
reformist ideas throughout Asia and Ottoman lands
during the 17th and 18th centuries. Among the
leading Naqshbandi teachers in the Middle Eastern
region were Taj al-Din ibn Zakariya (d. 1640) in

Mecca, Murad al-Bukahri (d. 1720), and Abd al-
Ghani al-Nablusi (d. 1731) in the Levant and Syria,
and Khalid al-Baghdadi (d. 1827) in Kurdistan and
among Ottoman authorities. The Khalwati brand
of reformism was initiated by Mustafa al-Bakri (d.
1748), a student of al-Nablusi, and his leading dis-
ciple in Egypt, Muhammad al-Hifnawi (d. 1767).
Their reformist teachings were well received among
the ulama and Sufis alike, and, in concert with
Naqshbandi teachings, they sparked the establish-
ment of new reform-minded Sufi orders in Algeria,
Tunisia, Sudan, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Sufis also were involved in leading armed oppo-
sition to the forces of European colonial powers
that penetrated and occupied Muslim lands in the
19th and 20th centuries. Between 1830 and 1847,
Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi (d. 1883), a Qadiri Sufi
shaykh inspired by Naqshbandi reformism, led
Algerian tribes in a jihad against the French. Out-
breaks of resistance continued after Abd al-Qadir'
s deportation, culminating in the great Algerian
revolt of 1871, which resulted in a strengthening
of the French stranglehold on the region. A Sam-
mani Sufi shaykh named Muhammad Ahmad (d.
1885), proclaimed to be the promised Mahdi, led
a tribal coalition against Ottoman-Egyptian troops
and established a Mahdist state in northern Sudan
in 1885. British forces put an end to his regime
in 1898, but Mahdist partisans have continued
to play a prominent role in Sudanese religious
and political affairs to this day. Another reformist
Sufi order, the Sanusis, established a network of
lodges throughout much of Libya and the central
Sahara region during the 19th century. From 1901
to 1914 they led unsuccessful campaigns against
French expansion into Chad, then against the Ital-
ians in Libya from 1911 to 1932.

Despite the active involvement of Sufi orders
in such resistance movements, Muslim modern-
ists such as Jamal al-Din Afghani (d. 1897) and
Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) have blamed Sufi
ideas and practices for making the UMMA vulner-
able to foreign domination. The Sufis have also
incurred the wrath of the Wahhabis of Saudi
Arabia, and today they are vulnerable to attack
wherever Wahhabi influence is strong. Sulism

642 suicide

means. Does it mean that Muslims should not go
into battle unless they have enough provisions,
or are they being instructed to keep fighting for
the cause, lest God punish them for giving up
or retreating? Or, is it actually a prohibition of
suicide? The clearest condemnations of suicide,
however, are to be found in the major hadith
collections, some of which devoted chapters to
the subject. In one hadith, Muhammad declares,
"Whoever strangles himself will repeat this deed
in the Fire, and whoever kills himself by stabbing
his own body with some weapon will repeat his
deed in the Fire" (al-Bukhari, Sahih, quoted in
Rozenthal). This hadith and others promise that
God will punish suicide victims severely in the
afterlife.

Apart from statements in the Quran and
hadith, the subject of suicide was also debated
by FIQH specialists. They discussed it in relation
to whether funerary rituals should be held for
suicide victims. The conservative view was that
such rites should not be performed, but others
were more lenient, taking into consideration
cultural practice and the emotional states of the
bereaved. Franz Rosenthal, a leading Islamic
Studies scholar, has identified other questions
raised in medieval fic/h literature. These include
the liability of those who unknowingly con-
tributed to the commission of a suicide and the
status of the legally stipulated bridal gift when a
prospective bride kills herself. Suicidal themes
also arise in love poetry and Sufi literature,
where the lover perishes in the absence of the
beloved, or becomes self-annihilated, as a moth
perishes when drawn to the flame. The moral-
ity of euthanasia only became a topic for jurists
in the modern period, with most ruling that it
should be considered a form of suicide.

In discussions of jihad warfare, as David Cook
has found, Muslim jurists discussed whether
going to battle against a superior force should
be considered suicide. Most ruled that it is not,
depending on the intent of the soldier, the neces-
sity for resorting to such desperate measures,
and whether the act is performed on behalf of
the community or for self-glorification. These

discussions invariably dovetailed into discussions
of martyrdom ( shahada ). Although martyrdom
achieved a high degree of symbolic importance
in Shiism, focused on the figure of Husayn ibn Ali
(d. 660) and the battle of Karbala, it was also
discussed by Sunni jurists. In the case of both
traditions, martyrs were considered to have been
specially blessed — they were exempted from stip-
ulated burial procedures (washing of the corpse
and enshroudment) and promised a higher rank
in paradise than ordinary believers.

Today, debates over suicide attacks committed
by Muslims in places like Lebanon, Israei/Pales-
tine, Iraq, Afghanistan, or in the U.S. on 9/1 1
reflect a wide spectrum of views among both Mus-
lims and non-Muslims. The most simplistic and
ideologically motivated positions taken in these
debates attribute the attacks to what is claimed to
be Islam's essentially violent nature, irregardless as
to context, or justify them as forms of communal
self-defense. More careful treatments of the subject
explain it in relation to several contextual factors,
some giving more emphasis to religion than others.
Those identifying religion as a significant explana-
tory factor maintain that it is a relatively recent
phenomenon in Islam, and point to the specific
Islamist ideologies and groups that underpin it.

On the other hand, Robert A. Pape of the
University of Chicago has conducted a system-
atic study of all cases of suicide terrorism that
occurred around the world from 1980 through
2003. He documented a total of 315 incidents in
this period and found that there was little con-
nection between them and the Islamic religion
per sc. Indeed, the largest number of attacks (76
out of 315) by a single group was conducted by
the Tamil Tigers, a Marxist-Leninist national-
ist movement in Sri Lanka with no connection
to Islam. Only about half of the attacks were
conducted by Islamist groups. Instead, Pape
has argued that suicide terrorism is primarily
a response to foreign occupation, rather than
being a phenomenon of Islamism, and that it
has several specific characteristics, including 1)
desire to achieve national liberation of a home-
land from occupation by a foreign power ruled

sultan 643

by a democratic government; 2) the identity of
the occupier differs significantly from that of the
occupied (in terms of culture, religion, language,
etc.); 3) suicide attacks are conducted by orga-
nized groups, rather than by random, irrational
individuals; and 4) because terrorist groups
learn from each other; there is a tendency for it
to spread. Foreign occupation will only increase
the incidence of suicide bombings over time and
make terrorist recruitment efforts more success-
ful. Pape recommends that the U.S. cease to use
military coercion against foreign countries, let
these countries exercise more autonomy, help
strengthen them with non-military economic
assistance, and keep a military force trained and
ready to handle any major crises that cannot be
resolved by other means.

At the time of this writing (summer 2008), it
is not clear which course U.S. policy makers will
pursue in the years to come, although the most
vocal policymakers and media voices continue
to favor military occupation, as witnessed in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Governments in many Muslim-
majority countries are seeking cither to eradicate
oppositional Islamic groups where they are able,
or apply a combination of pressures and incen-
tives to prevent them from engaging in armed
violence, including suicide attacks. Other govern-
ments appear to favor the use of suicide attacks
when they serve their national strategic interests.

See also Hamas; Hizbullah; jihad movements.

Further reading: Jonathan E. Brockopp, “The ‘Good
Death' in Islamic Theology and Law." in idem, ed.,
Islamic Ethics of Life: Abortion, War, and Euthanasia
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. 2003),
177—193; David Cook, Martyrdom in Islam (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007); David Cook and
Olivia Allison, Understanding and Addressing Suicide
Attacks: The Faith and Politics of Martyrdom Opera-
tions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2007);
Bernard K. Freamon, "Martyrdom, Suicide, and the
Islamic Law of War: A Short Legal History," in Fordham
International Law Journal 27 (2003), 299-369: Haim
Malka, "Must Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate over
Suicide Attacks." in Middle East Quarterly 10. no. 2

(Spring 2003), on http://www.meforum.org/ article/530;
Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of
Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005);
Franz Rosenthal, "On Suicide in Islam,” in Journal of
the American Oriental Society, 66 (July— Sept. 1946):
239-259, reprinted in idem, Muslim Intellectual and
Social History: A Collection of Essays (Aldershot, Hamp-
shire, U.K.: Varorium, 1990).

sultan

In Arabic the term sultan generally means “power”
or “authority,” but starting in the 10th century
c.E. increasingly it also came to be an official
title designating the person who holds power and
authority. Although the title could refer to a pro-
vincial governor or prince, it could also serve as
the title of the ruler of an entire region or empire.

This was the case when the Shii Buyids seized
control of Baghdad in 945 c.E. The Buyids allowed
the Abbasid Caliphate to continue as the symbolic
and religious head of the Muslim community
while their own leader took over all real military
and political authority under the title of sultan.
Although this division of authority did not form a
part of the early Islamic ideals, both the caliph and
political theorists accommodated themselves to
the realities of the situation. They concluded that
because the Buyids upheld Islamic law (sharia),
the chaos and violence that would likely ensue in
an attempt to overthrow them was not worth the
risk. At the same time, however, they tried to put
limits on the devolution of power by insisting that
only the caliph could confer the title of sultan. The
Buyids and those who came after them accepted
this and eagerly sought this statement of investiture
from the caliph for the legitimacy that it bestowed.
In return the sultan promised to defend the lands of
Islam from external threats, while ensuring justice
internally. In this way Muslim theorists adopted
a more Persian-inspired model of government in
which religion and government are seen as brothers
that mutually support each other.

When the Scljuk Turks defeated the Buyids in
1055 the caliph did not regain any of his author-
ity under the new regime, but the defeat did bring

sunna 645

In the early decades of Islamic history, the idea
of the sunna had a broad range of meanings that
became narrower with the passage of time and the
consolidation of Islamic belief and tradition. In
the Quran, prophets are represented as exemplar)'
figures and Muhammad is called the “beautiful
model" (al-uswa cil-hasana ) for those "who hope
for God and the last day" (Q 33:21). The Quran
also repeatedly urges believers to “obey God and
his messenger" (for example, Q 5:92; 8:20, 46).
However, it does not associate the term sunna with
Muhammad's words and deeds. Rather, the Quran
uses sunna in two senses: (1) with reference to the
wrongful ways of peoples of earlier generations
(for example, Q 3:137; 8:13; 18:55), and (2) with
the rightful way of God's judgments (Q 33:60-62;
40:85). After Muhammad's death, Muslims found
that God's laws and prohibitions as stated in the
Quran were often too general to give guidance in
real-life situations, even in matters of worship,
such as PRAYER and almsgiving. While many Mus-
lims continued to follow their own tribal customs
and judges relied on individual legal opinion, the
piety-minded advocated reliance on accounts of
Muhammad's life (sira) and the good example of
his Companions and their heirs (“the successors")
in Mecca and Medina, as well as those who had
migrated with them to the cities and towns of
Syria and Iraq. Contending notions of legal prec-
edent and correct religious practice gave rise to a
variety of living local traditions, or “precedents"
(sunan) to be emulated.

The efforts of Arab Muslim rulers to consoli-
date their power and centralize the administration
of the newly conquered lands also prompted
efforts to standardize the diffused community's
traditions and laws. Some claimed that the “liv-
ing" sunna of Medina was identical with that of
Muhammad, a position that was conveyed in the
teachings of Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), the eponym
of the Maliki Legal School. Because Muslims
living elsewhere in Islamdom did not favor elevat-
ing the practice of Medinan Muslims above their
own, they found that reliance on the exemplary
authority of Muhammad and other individuals
in the early Islamic community as transmitted in

the hadith, not the living example of Mcdinesc
Muslims, was an especially suitable alternative.
This led to the creation of a vast body of hadith,
including fabricated ones. Modern scholars have
argued that these hadith embodied not only the
sunna of Muhammad, the early caliphs, and the
Companions, but that they also gave legitimacy
and religious sanction to pre-Islamic Arab prac-
tices (sunan) that continued to be followed in
the broader Muslim community during the first
centuries of Islamic history. The elevation of the
hadith also appealed to newly converted non-Arab
Muslims in Iran and elsewhere who could not
claim to embody the “living” sunna of Muhammad
and his Companions. This may be why so many of
the collectors of hadith, such as al-Bukhari, al-Tir-
midhi (d. 892), and ibn Maja (d. 892), were Per-
sians by heritage. However, it was Muhammad ibn
Idris al-Shafii (d. 820), the eponym of the Shafii
Legal School, who most forcefully argued that the
sunna be grounded in hadith rather than in the liv-
ing practice of Muslims. Along with the Quran it
became the basis for jurisprudence recognized by
all the major Islamic legal schools (sing, madhhab).
Moreover, both the Quran and the sunna have
come to be seen as forms of revelation from God,
which is analogous to the Jewish rabbinic belief
in both the written and oral Torah of Moses. The
Quran embodies God's word, Muhammad's sunna
is inspired by God. Any practice or belief that
could not be validated by the Quran and sunna
was liable to be condemned as an unauthorized
“innovation ' (b/daa), especially by Muslims with a
highly literalistic understanding of their religion.

The distinction between Sunni and Shii Mus-
lims hinges in part on their different understand-
ings of the sunna. The Shia define it in relation to
Muhammad and his household (the AHL al-bayt ),
particularly as embodied in the hadith (or akl i-
bar) of Ali ibn abi Talib (d. 661) and the other
sacred Imams descended from him. Indeed, their
name is a shortened form of the phrase “faction
of Ali" ( shiat Ali), the first Imam. Starting in the
ninth/lOth century, Muslims who followed the
sunna of Muhammad and his Companions instead
of the Shii Imams saw themselves as the People of

646 Sunnism

the Sunna ( ahl al-sunna ), or People of the Sunna
and Community (ahl al-sunna wa'l-jamaa). They
eventually became known simply as the Sunnis.

Since the 18th century many Islamic renewal
and reform movements have called for a rejection
of “innovation" and a return to the Quran and
sunna. Although found in several of the Sufi orders,
such as that of the Naqshbandis, it is expressed
most clearly in the revivalism of the Wahhabis,
the Muslim Brotherhood, the Jamaat-i Islami, the
TABLIGHI JAMAAT, and groups inspired by them. On
the other hand, Muslim modernist reformers have
questioned the reliability of the hadith and sunna,
arguing that they be either rejected or carefully
circumscribed. Instead, many propose following
general ethical principles based on the Quran, in
harmony with reason, modern science, human
rights, religious pluralism, democracy, and gen-
der equality. This trend is represented by figures
such as Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), Muhammad
Abduh (d. 1905), and Ali Abd al-Raziq (d. 1966),
and more recently by thinkers such as Fazlur Rah-
man (d. 1988), Muhammad Shahrur (b. 1938), and
Fatima Mernissi (b. 1940).

See also Companions of the Prophet; ethics
and morality; sharia; Shiism.

Further reading: Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in
Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1996); Yasin Dutton, The Origins of Islamic
Law: The Quran, the Muwatta, and the Madinan Antal
(London: Routledge Curzon, 2002); Wael B. Hallaq. The
Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2005); G. H. A. Juynboll, “Some
New Ideas on the Development of Sunna as a Technical
Term in Early Islam." Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 10 (1987): 97-118; Fazlur Rahman, Islam , 2d ed.
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1979), 43-84.

Sunnism

Sunnism was the last of the major traditions of
Islam to be clearly articulated. In fact, it is possible
to think of Sunnism as comprising the broad swath
of Muslims who did not incline toward the other
two early traditions, Shiism and Kharijism. The

Khawarij broke with the rest of Muslims over the
question of whether the sinner could be considered
a Muslim. They defined the community narrowly,
and they were initially disposed to fight those with
whom they disagreed; the consensus among Mus-
lims grew that this position was loo extreme and
the Khawarij eventually became a tiny sect with few
adherents. Shii identity formed around a dispute
over the leadership of the community, but it fairly
quickly culminated in a belief that the leadership of
the community was no mere matter of human pref-
erence, but rather formed part of a divinely inspired
plan for the salvation of the community.

The Sunnis, then, are those Muslims who
eventually united in a belief that only God knows
the hearts, and so judgment should be left to
God — thus rejecting Khariji extremism — and that
the leadership of the community as it emerged his-
torically was part of God's plan, thus rejecting the
heart of Shii claims about legitimate leadership;
subsequent leadership would not be considered
very significant theologically because the Sunni
orthodoxy that eventually emerged held that the
CALIPH, while theoretically necessary for the exis-
tence of an Islamic state, was less important than
the caliphate as an institution. Finally, it was held
that the scholars (ulama) were the keepers of the
community's morals, not the caliphs.

The term sunni is an abridgement of ahl al-
sunna wa'al-jamaa , meaning the people of the
prophetic tradition and community. This refers to
the focus, especially dating from the ninth cen-
tury, on the collection of accounts of the prophet
Muhammad, the SUNNA, and following in the path
of that sunna. All Muslims accept the primacy of
the Quran, but the Sunnis place a unique empha-
sis on the sunna of Muhammad.

Today, Sunnis make up some 85 percent of
Muslims worldwide. The sunni legal schools have
traditionally been the means by which Sunni Mus-
lims actually learned the specifics of their Islam.
The importance of these schools has broken down
in the 20th century, causing contemporary Sunn-
ism to break with its traditional educational and
intellectual roots in a way that has not happened

Syria 649

istcring Syria. The disenfranchised middle class
and educated professionals were blocked from
advancing their own interests. Increasingly, those
who were not the beneficiaries of French political
and economic patronage turned to new political
movements with radical anticolonialist ideologies.
These two political forces would wrestle for control
of Syria's governmental apparatus for the first 30
years of Syria’s existence as an independent state
after World War 11. The dominant ideology of the
patriotic Syrian bourgeoisie was Arab nationalism
that espoused a reversal of the colonial partition
of Arab lands by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Arab
political sovereignty over its own territory, and the
adoption of Arab cultural policies that recognized
the significance of Islam as the majority religious
tradition in the region. Every anticolonialist pop-
ular movement that emerged in Syria in the 20th
century clung to some variant of Arab national-
ism as a basic political principle. The Communist
Party of Lebanon and Syria, founded in 1928, was
one of the new uncompromising anticolonialist
political movements. By the 1950s, it became one
of the largest and best organized communist par-
ties in the Arab world.

Another of the radical Arab nationalist par-
ties that emerged during the period of the French
mandate was the Baath Party, founded in 1939
by two schoolteachers, one Greek Orthodox and
the other Sunni Muslim. In addition to adhering
to a basic policy of Arabism, unity, and political
independence, the party also advocated a vague
notion of socialism that would evolve in time
to include land reform, state ownership of key
economic institutions such as banks, and state
regulation of the private sector. The Baath finally
came to power in 1966. From the 1950s through
1970s, the leadership of the Syrian Baath Party
was almost exclusively composed of members of
professions: professors, schoolteachers, doctors,
lawyers, and military officers — the very people
who had been thwarted from achieving political
power and economic advancement by the old rul-
ing classes of landowners, merchants, and urban
notables. In a military coup in 1970, one Alawi
air force officer, Hafiz al-Asad, prevailed over

all other factions in the Baath Party and became
president of Syria until his death in 2000. He was
succeeded by his son Bashar al-Asad who remains
the Syrian president in 2008.

Syria became a key player in Arab regional
politics. It is a frontline state in the Arab-Israeli
CONFLICTS. Syrian volunteers fought in the 1948
war in Palestine and, at its conclusion, Syria served
as one of the countries of refuge for Palestinian
refugees. Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights
in 1967 and expelled most of the population. More
of the Golan was occupied in 1973. Today there are
only about 20,000 Syrians, mostly Druze, left in
the Israeli occupied part of the Golan Heights. The
occupied territory has also been populated by about
20,000 Israeli settlers. Israel declared the unilateral
annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981.

Syria was a key Middle East regional ally of
the Soviet Union during the years of the cold war.
The USSR supplied the country with MIG fighter
jets and missile systems in order to defend itself,
but Syria was never allowed to achieve military
parity with Israel. When Israel mounted a full-
scale invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 and the
Syrian air force challenged Israeli jets bombing
its antiaircraft missile defense systems along its
border with Lebanon, a third of the entire Syrian
air force was destroyed in only a few hours. Since
1982 Syria has supported Palestinian factions who
have rejected peace proposals that fall short of
full Palestinian national sovereignty in the West
Bank and Gaza. Syria has opposed regional peace
initiatives that are bilateral in nature and ignore
the issue of Syrian sovereignty over the Golan
Heights. At the same time, Syria has conducted
secret negotiations with Israel through third-party
intermediaries and has shown flexibility over pro-
posals for limiting Syria's return to full sovereign
control of the Golan by having any future peace
agreement monitored by international peacekeep-
ing forces, including those of the United States,
and installing electronic early warning systems.

Syria has played a pragmatic role in Arab
regional politics. It has been cautious in nurtur-
ing its relations with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
States. Over the years Saudi Arabia has supplied

taawiz Sec amulets and talismans.
taaziya See Ashura; Muharram.

Tablighi Jamaat

The Tablighi Jamaat is a transnational Muslim
reform movement founded in the early 20th cen-
tury in colonial India. Although it is one of the
largest of such organizations in the world, its lack
of institutional hierarchy and structure makes
systematic study of the Tablighi Jamaats member-
ship and program quite difficult. The picture that
emerges from the small body of literature that does
exist is that of a “revivalist" movement looking to
precipitate societal reform through a HADlTH-based
program of personal piety, and a program of tabligh
(offering guidance) to wayward Muslims. What dis-
tinguishes the Tablighi Jamaat from many Islamist
movements, which often also base programs of
reform on a mythico-historical community of
Muhammad (d. 632) and his Companions, is that
state power is anathema to the Tablighi program.

The Tablighi Jamaat, however, is not at all
apolitical — in fact, the movements central prin-
ciples are themselves political in that they deal
with issues of authority (God versus the material
state). While many scholars confuse a rejection of

the modern state with a lack of political vision,
the Tablighi Jamaats political outlook is simply a
rejection of modern political organization. This is
particularly true internationally. Although many
of its scholars understand the Tablighi Jamaat to
be apolitical, the movements aversion to state
affairs stems from the tension between two vastly
different political visions.

The Tablighi Jamaat seeks the creation of a par-
allel authority to the state that docs not entail any
direct involvement with it, including active or open
opposition. Avoiding the state-centered identity that
is characteristic of modern political organization,
the Tablighi Jamaat preaches fealty to Islam above
all else — being Muslim trumps all other identities,
including family and nation-state. In this sense, the
principles that govern the Tablighi Jamaat resemble
those of al-Qaida. The Tablighi Jamaat, however,
offers an alternative vision of how transnational
revivalist movements can work toward reform. In
light of the tremendous amount of attention given
to “Islamist" and “Jihadist" movements, which are
not limited to al-Qaida, the Tablighi Jamaat points
to an important alternative, nonviolent method of
political organization and authority.

See also renewal and reform movements;
TERRORISM.

Caleb Elfenbein

651

-tsS

652 tafsir

Further reading: Gillcs Kepel. “Foi et pratique: Tab-
lighi Jamaat in France." In Travellers in Faith, edited
by Muhammad Khalid Masud, 188-205 (Boston: E.J.
Brill, 2000); Muhammad Khalid Masud, “The Growth
and Development of the Tablighi Jama at in India." In
Travellers in Faith, edited by Muhammad Khalid Masud,
3-43 (Boston: E.J. Brill, 2000); Barbara Metcalf, “Islam
and Women: The Case of the Tablighi Jama at." Stan ford
Humanities Review 5, no. 1 (1995): 1-9.

tafsir

Religions with holy books or scriptures require
ongoing traditions of interpretation and commen-
tary (exegesis) that contribute to preserving the
sacredness of those books and adapting them to
the changing social and historical circumstances
of the communities that possess them. Com-
mentary is a way of making the texts meaning-
ful to new generations of adherents. This can be
seen in the histories of Judaism and Christianity,
where biblical commentary has been a significant
meaning-making activity, especially with regard
to matters of law and tradition in the former and
theological doctrine in the latter. Hindus, Bud-
dhists, Jains, Confucians, and Taoists have also
produced significant bodies of commentary litera-
ture for their sacred texts.

In Islam, Quran commentary is one of the
foremost subjects of classical Islamic learning and
one of largest genres of Islamic religious literature,
second perhaps only to BIOGRAPHY. It is generally
known as tafsir, an Arabic term meaning “discov-
ery of something hidden," but probably adapted
from an Aramaic or Syriac term (peshar, pashshar )
used earlier by Jews and Christians in relation to
their own commentary traditions. Another term,
tawil (“returning to the beginning," “interpreta-
tion"), was once used synonymously with tafsir,
but eventually was understood with reference to
the elucidation of the Quran's hidden ( batin ) or
esoteric meanings, which could only be known
by a select few. This approach to commentary was
embraced especially by the Sufis and Shii ULAMA.

Tafsir, on the other hand, became more closely
associated with the elicitation of the “plain" or
exoteric meanings of the Quran. More elaborate
classifications of tafsir have been proposed that
include both of these aspects. For example, the
sixth Shii Imam Jaafar al-Sadiq (d. 765) is cred-
ited with proposing a four-tiered model of Quran
interpretation, according to 1) literal meaning
( ibara ); 2) allegorical meaning ( ishara ); 3) subtle
and symbolic meanings ( lataif ); and 4) higher
spiritual meanings (h aqaiq).

Typically, commentaries arc organized in accor-
dance with the chapters (suras) in the Quran,
proceeding sequentially verse by verse. Topics
addressed in standard books of tafsir include
whether the chapter or verse was revealed in
Mecca or Medina, the reasons for revelation
(asbab al-nuzul ), grammar and vocabulary, rheto-
ric, variant readings for consonants and vowels
(debated because of the lack of vowel and con-
sonant markings in early manuscripts of the
Quran, and because of regional differences), and
legal implications of the verse and whether it had
been abrogated by another verse ( al-nasikh wa'I-
mansukh). Commentators (known as mufassirun)
in the early centuries included narratives, called
Israiliyyat, drawn from a wider body of lore circu-
lating among different communities in the Middle
East to expand upon quranic narratives, such as
those concerning Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses,
and other biblical figures. Likewise, this was done
with regard to stories about events in the life of
Muhammad, such as accounts of his first revela-
tions and his Night Journey and Ascent. Through
the centuries, commentators also discussed the
benefits and blessings to be accrued from reciting
certain chapters and verses. A special subgroup
of commentaries focused only on the small num-
ber of verses that concern legal matters ( ahkam ),
such as worship, family, business, and warfare.
There were also commentaries written by Sufis,
the mystics of Islam, that focused on select verses
considered to be of import for their spiritual
teachings and insights. The Shia, for their part,

tafsir 653

also developed their own exegetical traditions,
based on the authority of their Imams. Shii com-
mentaries pointed out hidden and allegorical
references to the Imams, while identifying Sunnis
with the disbelievers and evildoers mentioned in
the Quran.

Muslims traditionally have distinguished
between two types of commentary. The one rec-
ognized by the more traditionally minded is based
on authoritative lines of transmission from earlier
generations, starting with that of the Muhammad
and his Companions, as conveyed in the hadith.
Some include the Quran's self-commentaries as
an authority in this tradition. This is known as
al-tafsir bi’l-mathur, or al-tafsir bi’l-riwaya. The
second major type of commentary is al-tafsir bi'l-
ray , or commentary that has been guided more by
individual opinion than by traditional authority.
This type is regarded with suspicion by those who
prefer to abide by prophetic tradition, and reflects
differences between parties like the Hanbalis
and the Hanafis, or the people of hadith and the
Mutazili School. In order to better accommodate
commentaries of this nature, some scholars drew
a further distinction between ‘'praiseworthy’'
works written by scholars who had a solid grasp
of the traditional Islamic sciences and the Ara-
bic language and “objectionable " works written
primarily on the basis of personal opinion by
scholars who were considered to be unqualified.
In any case, even the most tradition-bound of
commentators still exercised his own reasoned
judgment in interpreting the Quran, and was
subjectively influenced by his personal circum-
stances, social milieu, and events of his time. A
third type of commentary identified by scholars
ol the Islamic commentary tradition is al-tafsir
bi’l-ishara (commentary based on allegorical allu-
sion), which is concerned with the deeper, hid-
den meanings of the Quran. It is a kind of tawil,
as explained above.

Leading Medieval Commentaries. The historical
formation of the quranic commentary tradition is a
subject of some disagreement among scholars. Abd

Allah ibn Abbas (d. 688), Muhammad's paternal
cousin, is remembered by Muslims as the father of
tafsir, but Sunni tradition credits 10 of the Com-
panions and 10 of their Successors as establishing
this area of Islamic learning. The Companions
identified in this regard include, aside from lbn
Abbas, the first four Sunni caliphs (especially Ali
ibn Abi Talib ID. 6611), Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr
(d. 692), Anas ibn Malik (d. ca. 709), and the
famed warrior Amr ibn al-As (d. ca. 663). Nearly
all of the Successors arc said to have been students
of Ibn Abbas, and they included Ikrima (d. 723),
al-Hasan al-BASRi (d. 728), and Ali ibn Abi Talha
(d. 737). Some modern Islamic studies scholars,
however, maintain that this genealogy of tafsir
was a pious fiction, and that the tradition did not
develop until the early 9th century.

The foremost scholar of quranic exegesis dur-
ing the medieval period was Ibn Jarir al-Tabari
(d. 923), a Persian who achieved renown during
the era of the Abbasid Caliphate for the breadth
of his knowledge in the areas of hadith, history,
FIQH , and the quranic sciences. His tafsir, the Jam i
al-bayan an tawil ay al-Quran (The Compendium
of Clarity Concerning the Exegesis of the Verses
of the Quran), is an encyclopedic work that gath-
ers a substantial body of comments and opinions
about the meanings of quranic verses that were
known up to his time. Modern print editions of
this commentary number as many as 30 volumes.
Al-Tabari's commentary is considered to be foun-
dational for succeeding generations of mufassirun
and is part of the tafsir bi'l-mathur tradition of
exegesis. Other major commentaries in this group
include those of Abu 1-Layth al-Samarqandi (d.
983), Abu Ishaq al-Thaalabi (d. 1035), Abu
Muhammad al-Baghawi (d. 1122, an abridgment
of al-Thaalabi*s commentary), Ibn Kathir (d.
1373, an abridgment of al-Tabaris commentary);
Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 1505), and the Zaydi Shii
jurist Muhammad bin Au al-Shawkani (d. 1834)
of Yemen.

One of the foremost commentaries in the
tafsir bi i-ray tradition is Mahmud ibn Umar

'CsS=D

654 tafsir

al-Zamakhshari’s Al-Kcishshaf an haqaiq al-tanzil
wa uyun al-aqawil fi wujuh al-tawil (The Unveiler
of the Subtle Truths of Revelation and Essences
of Discussions Concerning Aspects of Exegesis,
12th century), which approaches the Quran with
a focus on its grammar, philology, and literary
qualities. Al-Zamakhshari was a Hanafi jurist from
Persia, and like al-Tabari, he excelled in his com-
mand of Arabic. Even though his commentary
reflects Mutazili influence, it nevertheless holds
high esteem among Sunni scholars. An abridged
version of it, Anwar al-tanzil (The Lights of Rev-
elation), was composed by al-Baydawi (d. 1286)
and became a popular text in Sunni madrasas. It is
short and relatively easy to use. Another commen-
tary based on those of al-Zamakhshari and al-Bay-
dawi, but with all traces of Mutazilism removed,
was that of the Hanafi scholar Abu al-Barakat
al-Nasafi (d. 1310). Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's Mafatih
al-ghayb (Keys to the Unseen, published in eight
large volumes), written in the late 12th/early 13th
century, represents a more theological and scien-
tific approach to interpreting the Quran. Al-Razi
was an expert in Ashari theology, and wrote his
tafsir under its influence, but added significant
scientific and philosophical insights drawn from
Greek, Persian, and Indian sources, as well as Ara-
bic ones. A pious man by nature, he nevertheless
favored reason over unquestioning reliance on
traditional sources, and he maintained that nature
itself provided proof of Gods existence. A later
tafsir, written in the 16th century, was Jalal al-
Din al-Muhalla and Jalal al-Din al-Suyutis Tafsir
al-Jalalayn (The Commentary of the Two Jalals).
Along with al-Baydawi s commentary, it was widely
used in madrasas and has become a popular tafsir
because of its brevity and simplicity.

The Shia consider their Imams to be the
most learned and qualified to engage in quranic
commentary, not the Companions and their Suc-
cessors. Among the Twelve-Imam Shia, a further
distinction is made between commentaries writ-
ten before the Great Occultation (ghayba) of the
12th Imam in 941 and those that came later. Two

early commentaries are attributed to the sixth and
eleventh Imams, Jaafar al-Sadiq and Hasan al-
Askari (d. 874). The leading commentaries of the
later period were Abu Jaafar al-Tusi's (d. 1066-67)
Al-Tibyan fi tafsir al-Quran (The Clarification
in Quran Commentary) and Abu Ali al-Fadl al-
Tabarsis (d. 1154) Majmaa al-bayan li-tafsir al-
Quran (The Confluence of Elucidation for Quran
Commentary), both of which took a more moder-
ate attitude toward Sunnism than early Shii com-
mentaries and reflect Mutazili influence.

Like the Shiis, especially the Ismailis, Sufis
looked for the hidden, allegorical, and moral
meanings of the Quran, although a number of
them also treated its grammatical, historical,
and legal aspects. Perhaps the most notable early
Sufi commentary was Sahl al-Tustari's (d. 896)
Kitab fahm al-Quran (Book of Understanding the
Quran), compiled by his disciples. Al-Tustari, a
Persian who spent his last years in Basra (Iraq),
provided commentary for about 1,000 verses of
the Quran, including lore about the prophets, sto-
ries and teachings of earlier Sufis, moral advice,
instructions for his disciples, and anecdotes about
his personal life. He included little of the standard
kinds of commentary found in the works of al-
Tabari, al-Zamakhshari, and Ibn Kathir. His work
was especially influential in Andalusia (Islamicatc
Spain), where it contributed to the formation of
Muhyi al-Din ibn al-Arabis (d. 1240) mystical
thought. Ibn al-Arabi himself is credited with
having written a partial commentary consisting
of some 66 volumes, but it has been lost. Com-
mentaries by him and his disciples on specific
sections of the Quran have survived, however, and
significant parts of his other major works, includ-
ing Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (Meccan Revelations),
contain large amounts of exegetical material.
Other Sufi commentaries include those of Abu
Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (d. 1021), Abd al-Karim
al-Qushayri (d. 1072), Ruzbihan Baqli (d. 1209),
and Rashid al-Din al-Maybudi (d. 1135).

Modern Commentaries. Print editions of medi-
eval tafsir books enjoy widespread circulation

tafsir 655

today, reflecting continuity with the past. Those
of al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, the two Jalals, and al-Bay-
dawi are especially popular among Sunnis, as are
medieval commentaries focusing on quranic laws.
Moreover, some modern editions of the Quran are
published with abbreviated commentary drawn
from these sources in the margins. Some modern
interpreters rely on the traditional commentaries,
but proponents of Islamic renewal and reform
have composed new works of tafsir, seeking to
adapt their understandings of the Quran to the
challenges and opportunities offered by moder-
nity. Others have proposed new principles for
interpreting the word of God, a development that
has caused some consternation among tradition-
ally minded Muslims.

The first of the modern commentaries is Tafsir
al-Xiarar by Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935)
and Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905), first published
in installments in Al-Manar (The Beacon), a
periodical that embodied the modernist program
of Abduh and his students. This work, although
it only treated select passages of the text, was a
modern version of the tafsir hi'l-ray approach to
commentary. Rashid Rida claimed that it was writ-
ten without consulting the classical books of tafsir
so as ensure its compatibility with modern thought
and science. The miraculous elements were mini-
mized for the sake of underscoring the Quran's
rationality. The Indian reformer Sayyid Ahmad
Khan (d. 1898) had proposed a similar approach
to the Quran earlier in response to the downfall of
the Mughal Dynasty in 1857 at the hands of the
British. The scientific approach to tafsir became
even more pronounced in the works of Tantawi
Jawhari (d. 1940), an Egyptian scholar, Abd al-
Hamid ibn Badis (d. 1940), an Algerian scholar
and nationalist, and Muhammad Husayn Tabata-
bai (d. 1982), an Iranian Shii scholar. Other tafsirs
written to demonstrate the Quran's agreement with
modern rationality were those of Mustafa Maraghi
(d. 1952) and Mahmud Shaltut (d. 1963), both
disciples of Abduh and shaykhs of al-Azhar in
Egypt. Several English translations of the Quran

have appeared with modernist commentary, such
as those of Yusuf Ali (d. 1953) and Muhammad
Asad (d. 1992). These include references to Abduh
and Rashid Rida, but also make overt use of classi-
cal Sunni commentaries and the hadith. An unfin-
ished Urdu commentary by Abu al-Kalam Azad
( d. 1958) also took a modernist approach — one
that emphasized religious pluralism, particularly
among Muslims and Hindus, and was inspired by
European history of religions scholarship.

Modern Quran commentaries have also
been written by two of the leading ideologists of
Islamism — Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) of the Egyptian
Muslim Brotherhood and Abu al-Ala Mawdudi
( d. 1979) of Pakistan's Jamaat-i Islami. Qutb’s
commentary, Fi zilcil al-Quran (In the Shade of the
Quran, 6 volumes) was written in Egypt during his
years of imprisonment and torture for alleged con-
spiracy against Jamal Abd al-Nasir's government in
the 1950s and 60s. In it he constructed a rcligio-
political vision of the righteous struggle (jihad)
of God's true believers against the anti-Islamic
West and the forces of disbelief and tyranny at
work within Muslim society, which he called the
“Jahiliyya society," thus drawing a parallel between
the present day and the era of “ignorance" that
prevailed when Islam first appeared in the seventh
century. Qutb let his own response to the Quran
dominate his commentary, paying scant attention
to older commentators and methods. Mawdudfs
Urdu commentary, Tafhim al-Quran (Understand-
ing the Quran, 6 volumes), began to be written
in 1942, just before India's partition, and was not
completed until 1972. Mawdudis interpretation,
unlike that of Qutb, was not shaped by impris-
onment, but by his involvement in partition and
post-partition politics, first in India, then in Paki-
stan. In his reading of the Quran he offered a vision
of a perfect, universal Islamic society governed by
God's law. Although opposed to European pow-
ers and secular values, he took a more gradualist,
democratic approach than did Qutb to political
action, believing in the eventual establishment of
an Islamic "theo-democracy."

Tamerlane 659

country. Bin Ladin, who had helped the Afghan
mujahidin fight the Soviets in the 1980s, returned
there with his family and followers in 1996 after
being driven out of Sudan as a result of pressure
by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States on
the Sudanese government. The Saudi government
attempted to have the Taliban arrest and place him
in their custody, but, instead, the Taliban retained
their alliance with him and used al-Qaida fight-
ers in their operations against opponents in the
country. Bin Ladin, in turn, used Afghanistan as a
base to declare jihad against the United States and
Israel, and to condemn the Saudi government for
allowing foreign “unbelievers" to occupy the land
of Islam's two holiest mosques — those of Mecca
and Medina. When al-Qaida bombed U.S. embas-
sies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tan-
zania, in 1998, the United States retaliated with
cruise missile attacks on two al-Qaida camps in
Afghanistan. The U.S. attack did not inflict much
damage, but it strengthened al-Qaida's position,
allowing it to move forward with plans that led to
the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen (2000) and
the 9/11 attacks on the mainland United Slates in
2001. A core group of Taliban fighters and their
leaders survived the U.S. -led invasion of Novem-
ber 2001 and retreated to remote regions along the
Afghan-Pakistani border, from which they have
launched attacks on the new Afghan government
and coalition forces. By 2006 they had regained
enough strength, with the help of income derived
from opium production, to increase the number
and effectiveness of attacks against their enemies.
It is thought that Mullah Umar still serves as a
Taliban leader.

See also burqa; Islamic government; Islamism;
madrasa; refugees; renewal and reform move-
ments; terrorism; Wahhabism.

Further reading: Steve Coll. Ghost Wars: The Secret
History of the CIA , Afghanistan , and Bin Laden, from the
Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Pen-
guin. 2004); Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner (New
York: Riverhead Books, 2003); Peter Marsden. The

Taliban : War and Religion in Afghanistan (London: Zed
Books. 2002); Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam ,
Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000); Lawrence Wright,
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/1 1 (New
York: Random House, 2007).

Tamerlane (Timur, Timur-e Lang)

(1336-1405) great Mongol ruler who built an
empire based in Central Asia, but whose armies
devastated many Middle Eastern and Indian cities
Tamerlane, born the son of a nomadic chief, rose
to become one of the great empire builders of
history. By the time of his death, his kingdom
stretched from India and Central Asia into Rus-
sia and Turkey, and threatened China. He helped
the main cities of his native land (now Uzbeki-
stan), Bukhara and Samarkand, become prosper-
ous trading centers along the Silk Road, but the
peoples of the Middle East and India suffered as a
result of his destructive conquests.

Genghis Khan (1 167-1227) invaded Central
Asia in 1219 and 1220, and the khan's second
son, Chagatai (d. 1241), was given the territory
to govern. Tamurlane, born into the Barlas tribe,
would, as he rose to power, claim descent from the
great khan through Chagatai. As a young man, he
was wounded with an arrow, and he would have
limited use of one arm and leg as a result. His
Westernized name means “Timur the Lame."

Putting his own physical problems aside, how-
ever, in the 1360s Tamerlane began to take control
of the lands inhabited by his tribe's neighbors,
and, by 1369, he took control of all the territory
formerly ruled by Chagatai. He assumed sovereign
powers and established his capital at Samarkand.
He almost immediately began to add territory to
his empire. Largely self-educated, he gradually
became a most capable general and developed
shrewd political skills. He invited the peoples he
conquered into his rule and integrated them into
his army. He pushed into India in the 1290s and
after the turn of the century moved westward

‘ CtfS3 660 Tanzeem-e-lslami

through Persia into Turkey. One of his great vic-
tories was over his fellow Muslims, the Ottomans,
at Ankara in 1402.

Tamerlane emerged at a time when the Hanafi
Legal School was the dominant form of Islam in
Central Asia. He included Hanafi scholar Abd al-
Jabbar Khwarazmi among his prominent advisers,
but he largely distanced himself from the majority
of the scholarly community. Instead he seemed to
favor the Sufis. For example, he honored Sayyid
Baraka, a Sufi shaykh who resided in Tirmidh,
and allowed his burial in his own tomb, the Gur-
e Amir. While using Islam to unite his empire
(much of it carved out from Islamic lands), he did
not impose his faith on conquered lands. He was
known for his inclusion of Shii Muslims and even
Christians in his army.

Economically, his early goal was to make the
Silk Road the exclusive connecting link between
China and Europe. His rise to power coincided
with the emergence of the Ming dynasty (1368-
1644) in China. Toward the end of his life, he
decided to move against China and restore the
former Yuan rulers. In the winter of 1404-05, he
launched another expedition, but his age caught
up with him and he died along the way before
entering Ming territory. His body was returned to
Samarkand and buried at the Gur-c Amir.

Tamerlane became the fountainhead of the
Timurid dynasty, which maintained power in Cen-
tral Asia until the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shay-
bani (ca. 1451-1510), emerged out of Kazakhstan
and conquered Tamerlane's former capital. Subse-
quently, the Uzbeks became the dominant force
in the surrounding area, now called Uzbekistan.
About the same time, Tamerlane's lineage would
establish itself in India through Babur (r. 1526-30),
founder of the Mughal dynasty (1526-1857).

See also Central Asia and the Caucasus.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Samuel Adrian M. Adshead. Cen-
tral Asia in World History (New York: St. Martin's
Press. 1993); Beatrice Forbes Manz. The Rise and Rule

of Tamerlane , Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civiliza-
tion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1989);
Justiin Marozzi. Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of
the World (London: HarperCollins, 2004).

Tanzeem-e Islami (Tanzim-i Islami; Urdu:
The Islamic Group)

Tanzeem-e Islami is a Pakistani Islamic revitaliza-
tion movement founded in 1975 by Israr Ahmad
(b. 1932). He was a teenager in the years follow-
ing World War II when the partition of Pakistan
from India took effect. He attended King Edward
Medical College in Lahore and during the years
leading to his graduation in 1954 he associated
with the Jamaat-i Islami, the Islamic renewal orga-
nization founded by Abu al-Ala Mawdudi (1903-
79). During these years he not only absorbed
Mawdudis thought, but he also became familiar
with the work of Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938),
who had in 1930 initially proposed the establish-
ment of Pakistan as a Muslim state separate from
Hindu India.

Following his graduation, Ahmad worked
with the Jamaat-i Islami, which sought to build
a revitalized Islam through influencing students
and social elites. However, in 1957, following
Mawdudis decision to enter fully into electoral
politics, Ahmad withdrew. While launching a
career as a physician, he also became an inde-
pendent religious teacher and pursued advanced
work in Islamic studies, completed in 1965 at the
University of Karachi.

In 1967 Ahmad authored “Islamic Renais-
sance: The Real Task Ahead," a tract in which he
articulated his basic notion that revitalizing Islam
should be pursued by instilling the true faith and
certitude in individual Muslims, especially the
intelligentsia, which could be accomplished by
propagating Muslim teachings combining con-
temporary language and the best scholarship.
One problem that needed to be addressed was the
seeming dichotomy between modern science and
Islam. Ahmad abandoned his medical practice in

Tanzimat 661

1971 and, the following year, he founded the first
of several organizations to pursue his approach to
Islamic renewal, including the Markaz-i Anjuman
Khuddam ul-Quran in Lahore. This organization
sought to promote the study of the Quran and
propagate its teachings so as to foster a return
to the true Islam. He founded Tanzeem-c Islami
three years later.

Ahmad began with Mawdudi's understanding
that Islamic thought should be implemented not
just in one's personal life, but also in the larger
world of the social, cultural, juristic, political,
and economic realms. Tanzeem-e Islami teaches
that a Muslim should develop sincere faith,
live in obedience to Muslim law (sharia), and
make an effort to propagate the teachings to all
humanity. The ultimate goal is to place Islam
over all human-constructed systems (from gov-
ernment to science). Any Sunni Muslim may
join Tanzeem-e-Islami. Membership involves
offering a pledge of obedience to the organiza-
tion's Amir (leader), currently Hafiz Akif Saced.
That pledge operates within the realm of obedi-
ence to the sharia.

Tanzcem-e Islami has emerged as a strong
conservative force within Pakistan. It has opposed
the development of modern secular curriculum at
Pakistani universities, the Pakistani government's
friendly relations with the United States (and
especially the sending of troops to Iraq), and the
influx of Western values and vices into Pakistan.
While primarily active in Pakistan, Tanzeem-e
Islami has developed affiliates based in the Indo-
Pakistani Muslim communities in North America
and Europe.

See also Islamism; renewal and reform

MOVEMENTS.

J. Gordon Melton

Further reading: Israr Ahmad. Rise and Decline of the
Muslim Umniah. Translated by S. Ansari (London: Ta-
Ha,1986); Tanzeem-e-Islami Web site. Available online.
URL: http://www.tanzeem.org/. Accessed December 19.
2005.

tanzil See revelation.

Tanzimat

The term Tanzimat (plural of tanzini = “ordering ")
refers to the series of reforms designed to reorga-
nize and modernize the Ottoman state, which were
introduced under Sultan Abd al-Majid (r. 1839-61)
and continued under Abd al-Aziz (r. 1861-76), and
more generally to this period in Ottoman history.
Earlier reforms had been attempted during the
Tulip Period (1718-30), when military defeats had
convinced Ottoman intellectuals of the need for
adopting European technologies. After the French
Revolution (1789), Selim III (r. 1789-1807) initi-
ated a series of military, economic, political, and
diplomatic reforms, and interaction with Europe
continued to develop during the process. These
reforms were elaborated under Mahmud II (r.
1808-39). The Tanzimat reforms drew on these ear-
lier attempts, and they were prompted by military
defeats resulting in the independence of Greece and
the autonomy of Egypt. Confronted with the eco-
nomic and military superiority of Europe, the Otto-
mans felt an increased need for modernization.

Abd al-Majid acceded to the throne as SULTAN
in 1839, and he named as his foreign minister
Mustafa Rashid Pasha, a diplomat with experi-
ence in Europe. Rashid Pasha urged the sultan to
approve an imperial decree known as the Gulhane
Edict, which Rashid Pasha read publicly in 1839.
This decree constituted a quasi-constitutional
document outlining a replacement of traditional
economic, legal, and educational institutions with
modern ones, many of them derived from Europe,
which many Ottomans saw as representing prog-
ress. It called for reforms in tax collection and
military conscription, provided for the formation
of councils of representatives at the provincial
level and of secular schools, and ensured some
rights and protections for citizens of all classes
and religious communities. This gesture of equal-
ity to Christian and Jewish minorities was meant
to curb the threat of separatism by promoting a

664 tasawwuf

but some scholars such as Carl Ernst cast doubt
upon the veracity of tariqa missionary activities.

Although Sufism was originally an antinomi-
nal response to the power held by Islamic reli-
gious leaders who had systematized Islam in ways
that Sulis considered to be dogmatic and devoid
of spiritualism, the tariqa system ultimately cre-
ated and maintained an alternate religious vision
and system of transmitting knowledge. This, in
turn, maintained tradition and served in part as a
conservative force.

See also baga and fana; dhikr; murid ; munshid;

RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS; SAINT; ZIYARA.

Sophia Pandya

Further reading: Carl W. Ernst, Sufism (Boston: Shamb-
hala, 1997); Michael Gilsenan, Saint and Sufi in Modern
Egypt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); Annemaric
Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1975); J. Spencer
Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1971).

tasawwuf See Sufism.

tashbih Sec anthropomorphism.

tasliyya See pbuh.
tawaf See HAJJ; umra.
tdwil See tafsir.

tawhid (Arabic: to proclaim God as one;
monotheism)

Monotheism is the belief in one god, or in a gods
essential oneness. It is an English term that was
first coined in the 17th century to distinguish
Christian, Jewish, and later Islamic beliefs about

God from the beliefs of those belonging to other
religions, especially those described as being poly-
theistic (believing in more than one god). Scholars
of the comparative history of religions have recog-
nized that monotheistic belief has taken different
forms in human history, and they have proposed
a variety of technical terms to describe these dif-
ferent forms: monolatry (worshipping one god),
monism (belief that a single being unites all beings
in the universe), deism (belief in a single god who
does not intervene in his creation), unitarianism
(belief that god is absolutely one), trinitarianism
(belief that god has three aspects or “persons,”
as in Christianity), and pantheism (belief that
god and the universe are identical). Tawhid is the
Arabic word that Muslims today most commonly
equate with the English term “monotheism,” but
the historical range of connotations and meanings
tawhid has taken in Islamic theological, philosoph-
ical, and mystical discourses is greater than this
simple translation would otherwise suggest.

The idea of the oneness of God (Allah) is clearly
expressed in the first part of the Islamic testimony
of faith, the SHAHADA — “There is no god but God”
which is repeated by Muslims throughout their lives
and in the daily calls to prayer. It is also one of the
Quran's most fundamental messages. Q 112 states
that he is one ( ahad ), he does not beget, and he has
no equal. Other verses declare, “your God is one
God” (Q 18:110; 21:108; 39:4), while others stress
that he has no partner (sharik; Q 6:163; 17:111)
and condemn polytheists ( mushrikin ) — those who
claim that God does indeed have partners. Although
the Quran attributes this message to all of God's
prophets, it is especially associated with Abraham,
who is the figurehead of the hanif religion, a kind of
primordial monotheism that preceded that of Jews
and Christians. The importance of acknowledging
belief in one God is reiterated in the hadith.

Tawhid served as a starting point for Muslim
theology (known as halam ), which was con-
cerned with the issue of God's oneness, espe-
cially as it pertained to his attributes. The most
prominent theological school to articulate Islamic

theology 667

Press, 1975); J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in
Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

terrorism

Terrorism is today used to describe many different
kinds of violence. As a result, the meaning of the
word terrorism is highly contested. Most individual
states, and much of the international community
in the form of international organizations and law,
deline terrorism as the use of illegal force by non-
state actors. This definition focuses attention on
the violence of nonstate actors — often understood
by those who carry out such violence as resistance
to a particular authority or past violent activity
perpetrated by that authority — at the expense of
attention to violence perpetrated by the state.

Rather than focusing on the causes that lead
to violent resistance, discussions of terrorism arc
often limited to questions about the legitimate use
of force. However, a more general definition of the
term emerges from understanding the dynamics of
the conflicts thought to include terrorism or violent
resistance: the use of violence against nonmilitary
targets in order to create an environment of fear and
intimidation for the purposes of achieving a desired
end. This definition avoids a judgment of validity of
one kind of violence over another, state and non-
state, legitimate and illegitimate, for example, and
focuses instead on the use of a particular kind of
violence and means of achieving a desired end.

Since the 1970s, in Western media and public
imagination terrorism has become increasingly
synonymous with Islam. From the 1972 killing of
Israeli Olympic athletes at the hands of Palestin-
ian gunmen in Munich, Germany, to the events of
September 11, 2001, images creating the impres-
sion of an essential link between violence and
Islam have been ubiquitous. This is not to say that
the word terrorism has not been used to describe
violence in other parts of the world throughout
this time, such as in Northern Ireland, South
Africa, and the Oklahoma City bombing in the
United States (to name just a few cases). None-

theless, terrorism and Islam, in the eyes of some
western European and North American commen-
tators, are inextricably linked; the overemphasis of
the concept of jihad as “holy war" in interpreting
Islam, among both Muslims and non-Muslims,
also contributes to this image. It is essential to
note, however, that the Arabic term for terrorism,
irhab , is a recent addition to the Arabic language.
It does not appear in the Quran nor is it found in
any hadith. The relationship between terrorism
and Islam, then, must be understood in the con-
texts in which violence is termed terrorism.

The kind of violence generally called terrorism
is not particular to any religious tradition or polit-
ical system. In the previous two decades, violence
against nonstate actors has been perpetrated by
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus
as well as by nonbelievers and adherents of local
religious traditions, all living in varied political
systems. At the same time, members of all reli-
gious traditions and citizens in states with differ-
ent political systems have denounced violence of
this nature as inimical with the tradition or system
in question. When thinking about terrorism, then,
it is more useful to focus on the fact of violence
and the kinds of violence at work as well as the
dynamics in which the violence is found than it is
on whether or not such force is legitimate accord-
ing to a given tradition.

See also Arab-Israeli conflict; Gulf Wars;
Hamas; Hizbullah; al-Qaida; suicide.

Caleb Elfenbein

Further reading: Giovanna Borradori. Philosophy in a
Time of Terror (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2003); Mark Juergcnsmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

testimony See shahada.

theology

The systematic study and teaching of religious
beliefs about God by experts who hold those

672 tradition

ality, edited by John C. Reeves, 61-85 (Atlanta: Society
for Biblical Literature, 2003).

tradition See customary law; hadith; ijmaa; ijti-
had; sharia; sunna.

travel

Muslims have traveled the world for centuries to
visit holy sites and search for knowledge. Travel
has played an important role in the Islamic world.
Natural inclinations to travel have been reinforced
with Islamic traditions inciting Muslims to jour-
ney for knowledge and pilgrimage. A central tenet
of Islam has been the hajj, the annual pilgrimage
to Mecca. As one of the Five Pillars of Islam,
many Muslims over the generations have made
the journey to fulfill their religious duty and
strengthen their commitment to the faith. Large
annual pilgrimage caravans would be formed
and sponsored by local rulers to help pilgrims
make their way to their destination. This tradi-
tion has been a powerful unifying force for the
Islamic community, drawing together Muslims
from diverse regions for a common purpose.

The prophet Muhammad (d. 632) also urged his
followers to travel in search of knowledge, “even
as far as China” and many M uslims wandered from
Morocco to China and beyond in their quest for
deeper insight and spiritual wisdom. Gradually,
a mobile network of religious scholars (ulama)
developed throughout the Islamic world. Edu-
cated men such as Ibn Battuta (d. 1377) would
travel from one center of learning to another, lis-
tening to lectures, attending classes, and gaining
employment as teachers, judges, and bureaucrats.
A literary genre of travel accounts developed,
attesting to the popularity of this activity. This
network has been damaged in the modern period,
when colonial powers established hard nationalist
borders in a world that had been more porous.
With the imposition of controls such as passports
and visas, the traditions of traveling across the

Islamic world became more limited, although this
has been partially offset by technological advances
such as the train and the airplane. Nonetheless,
the tradition of travel remains an important tenet
of Islam as Muslims continue to make the hajj in
the millions and Islamic scholars from everywhere
flock to study in the Islamic universities of Cairo,
Damascus, Fez, and Saudi Arabia.

See also boat; camel; colonialism; horse; tariqa.

Eric Staples

Further reading: Dale Eickclman and James Piscatori,
eds., Muslim Travelers (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1996); F. E. Peters, The Hajj (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); Hamilton A.
R. Gibb, The Travels oj Ibn Battuta 1325-1354 , 5 vols.
(Cambridge: Hakylut Society at the University Press,
1954-2000); lan R. Netton, Seek Knowledge: Thought
and Travel in the House of Islam (Richmond, England:
Curzon Press, 1996).

truth See HAQIQA ; PHILOSOPHY.

Tunisia (Official name: Tunisian Republic)

The northernmost country in Africa, Tunisia juts
out into the Mediterranean Sea, bordered on the
west by Algeria and on the south by Libya, forming
a link between three different cultures: sub-Saha-
ran Africa to the south, Europe and the Mediter-
ranean region to the north, and the Maghreb, the
countries of northwestern Africa. Tunisia has a
population of about 10.5 million people (2008
estimate) and an area of about 63,000 square miles
(163,610 sq. km), slightly larger than the state of
Georgia. The people of Tunisia include Berbers,
Arabs. Europeans, and other groups. The vast
majority of the population — some 98 percent — are
Sunni Muslims, most of whom follow the Maliki
Legal School. Others, claiming Turkish ancestry,
follow the Hanafi Legal School. A small number
of Tunisians, living mainly on Jerba Island, belong
to the Ibadiyya sect of Islam. The official language

<5S

674 Turkey

Bourguiba's foreign relations also provoked
some unrest. His foreign policy was generally
pro-Western; for example, during the Arab-lsraeli
War of June 1967, Bourguiba declined to break off
relations with the United States, despite pressure
to do so. In 1987, after more than three decades
in power, Bourguiba was declared mentally unfit
to rule. Prime Minister Zine el Abidine Ben Ali
replaced him as president. Since then, Ben Ali has
been elected president four times, in 1989, 1994,
1999, and 2004.

Tunisia's economy has shown steady growth,
with a diverse economy, healthy exports, renewed
growth in tourism, agricultural production, and
strong trade links with Europe. Industries include
petroleum, mining (particularly phosphate and
iron ore), tourism, and textiles.

Sec also Berber; colonialism; Islamism; Otto-
man dynasty; secularism.

Kate O'Halloran

Further reading: Francois Burgat and William Dowell,
The Islamic Movement in North Africa, 2d cd. (Austin:
Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas
at Austin, 1997); Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi, The
Politicization of Islam: A Case Study of Tunisia (Boulder.
Colo.: Westvicw Press, 2000); Kenneth Perkins, A His-
tory of Modern Tunisia (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2004).

Turkey (Official name: Republic of Turkey)

Europeans have used forms of the name “Tur-
key" to refer to the dominant presence of Turkish
peoples and states in Anatolia since the time of
the Crusades; however, the Turkish form Turkiye
has been used officially only since the foundation
of the present Republic of Turkey in 1923. The
country today comprises the peninsula known
as Anatolia (Asia Minor) and the southeastern
tip of the Balkan Peninsula (Europe), which are
separated by the Bosphorus strait, on both sides
of which sits the city of Istanbul. It shares borders

in the northwest with Greece and Bulgaria; in the
east with Georgia, Armenia, and Iran; and in the
south-southeast with Syria and Iraq. Because of
its unique geographical position and the histori-
cal movement of peoples and ideas between Asia
and Europe, Turkey has often been called a bridge
between East and West.

Turkey occupies an area of 301,303 square
miles, which makes it comparable in size to Texas.
It is bordered by the Black Sea to the north; Bul-
garia and Greece to the northwest; the Aegean Sea
to the west; the Mediterranean Sea, Syria, and Iraq
to the south; Iran, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the
east; and Georgia to the northeast. Turkeys popula-
tion was estimated at 71.9 million in 2008, and is
made up predominantly of those of Turkish ethnic-
ity, though there is a large Kurdish minority (est. 20
percent), as well as smaller numbers of Arabs, Laz,
Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and other ethnic groups.
The population is predominantly Muslim (mostly
Sunni, but with a substantial number of Alevis and
some Shiis), along with a small number of Chris-
tians and Jews. The official language is Turkish.

The influx of Turkish-speaking peoples into
Anatolia gained impetus after the Seljuk victory
over Byzantine forces at Manzikcrt in 1071. Their
dominance over the land was then ensured by
powerful states set up by the Seljuks and later by
the Ottomans. While the Ottomans subsequently
gained control over much of the Middle East and
the Balkans, Anatolia remained the heartland of
the Turkish population, though with large popu-
lations of Greek and Armenian Christians and
non-Turkish Muslims, such as the Kurds, also
inhabiting the area.

When the Ottoman Empire was dissolved after
World War I, a Turkish national movement led by
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) succeeded in
founding the Republic of Turkey, the borders of
which were delineated by the Treaty of Lausanne
(1923). Through an exchange of populations with
Greece, there resulted an overwhelming Muslim
majority in Turkey, including the large Alevi
minority. In addition, the new republics nation-

' Css ^ 676 Turkmenistan

The earliest written Turkish is found in the form
of inscriptions on stone monuments in Mongolia
dating from the eighth century C.E. Artistic produc-
tion in the language, however, was predominantly
in oral form, including epics such as that of Dede
Korkut, which were later written down. A com-
parative dictionary of Turkic dialects was prepared
in the 11th century by Kashgarli Mahmud. Written
literature began to proliferate in the Islamic era,
and many early works were of a religious nature,
such as the mystical poetry of Yunus Emre, Ashik
Pasha, and Kaygusuz Abdal, along with religious
and mystical prose works. During the Ottoman
period (14th-18th centuries), poets such as Pir
Sultan Abdal, Karacaoglan, and Erzurumlu Emrah
continued to compose works in vernacular Turk-
ish, while in Ottoman court circles a sophisticated
literature developed, heavily influenced by classical
Persian poetry, and represented by such poets as
Baki, Fuzuli, Ncdim, Nefi and Shaykh Galib. Dur-
ing the Tanzimat reform period of the 19th century,
European literature began to exert an influence
on the form and subject matter of Ottoman lit-
erature, and it was in this period that the Turkish
novel began to develop as a genre. Inspired by the
French Revolution, Ottoman writers developed
an Ottoman patriotism, best exemplified by the
works of Namik Kemal (1840-88). After the 1908
revolution, this sentiment developed into a Turk-
ish nationalist movement, which was reflected in
the literature of the period, especially in the short
stories of Omer Seyfettin (1884-1920).

Literature after the foundation of the Republic
of Turkey in 1923 dealt with themes relevant to
the period: progress, the promotion of Turkish
culture, the recent war of independence, and
the gap between Ottoman intellectuals and rural
Turks. Notable writers from this period included
the novelists Halide Edip Adivar (1884-1964) and
Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoglu (1889-1974). The
poet Nazim Hikmet (1902-63) broke from metri-
cal conventions while dealing with social themes,
and he is credited with modernizing Turkish
poetry. Writing about everyday life in a simple

style, Orhan Veli Kanik (1914-50) is one of the
many popular poets of modern Turkish literature.
Many Turkish novelists have had their works
translated into English, most notably Aziz Nesin
(1915-95), Yashar Kemal (1922- ). In 2006 the

novelist Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952) was awarded the
Nobel Prize in literature.

See also Arabic Language and literature; Otto-
man dynasty; Persian language and literature.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Walter G. Andrews, et al., eds., Otto-
man Lyric Poetry: An Anthology (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1997); Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish Lan-
guage Reform: A Catastrophic Success (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999); Kemal Silay, cd., An Anthology
of Turkish Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University
Turkish Studies, 1996); Talal Sail Halman, cd.. Contem-
porary Turkish Literature: Fiction and Poetry (Ruther-
ford, N.J.: Fairlcigh Dickinson University Press, 1982);
Ncrmin Mencmcncioglu and Fahir Iz, eds.. The Penguin
Book of Turkish Verse (New York: Penguin, 1978).

Turkmenistan See Central Asia and the
Caucasus.

Twelve-Imam Shiism (also called
Twelver Shiism, Ithnaashari Shiism, and
Imami Shiism)

Shiism is the leading sectarian alternative to Sunni
Islam. The largest of the three major Shii tradi-
tions is Twelve-Imam Shiism (the other two being
Ismaili Shiism and Zaydi Shiism). Its name is based
on belief that 12 male descendants from the family
of Muhammad (d. 632), starting with An ibn Abi
Talib (d. 661 ) and ending with the Mahdi Muham-
mad al-Muntazar (entered concealment in 874),
are Imams — exemplary authorities for the commu-
nity and focal points for religious devotion.

It is estimated that the Shia as a whole con-
stitute between 12 percent and 15 percent of the
total Muslim population today (1.3 billion, 2008
estimate), or between 156 million and 195 million

Twelve-Imam Shiism 677

adherents. The largest Twelver populations are
located in Iran and Iraq, where there are about
58.9 million (90 percent, est. 2007) and 17 million
(60-65 percent, est. 2007) adherents, respectively.
Twelvers are also majorities in Azerbaijan (85
percent) and Bahrain (70 percent); they are large
minorities in Lebanon (30 percent), Kuwait (25
percent), the United Arab Emirates (16 percent),
Saudi Arabia (15 percent), Afghanistan (19 per-
cent), Tajikistan (5 percent), Pakistan (18-20 per-
cent), and India (2-5 percent). In addition, since
the latter part of the 20th century, small immigrant
communities of Twelver Shii Muslims have arisen
in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States,
and Canada. Although Twelvers have often avoided
overt involvement in politics, and developed reli-
gious doctrines to make this permissible, their
understanding of Islam changed significantly in the
latter part of the 20th century, leading to what some
scholars have called a “revival” of political Shiism.

BEGINNINGS

The historical roots of Twelve-Imam Shiism date
back to the crisis that confronted the early Mus-
lim community in Medina when Muhammad died
in 632, before succession to leadership had been
clearly determined. Arabian society was strongly
patrilineal, but Muhammad had no sons to suc-
ceed him. The consensus of leading members
of the UMMA was that Muhammad's successor, or
caliph, should be Abu Bakr (r. 632-634), one of
his closest companions and a respected member
of the community. However, a minority favored
Ali, Muhammad's paternal cousin and son-in-law.
Ali’s backers became known as his shia (party
or faction), which is the basis of the English
term “Shiism.” They also became known as the
Alids. According to Shii accounts and the hadith,
shortly before his death Muhammad had identi-
fied Ali as the “master" ( mawla ) of those who had
also regarded Muhammad as their master. Even
though Ali became the caliph in 655, his reign
was troubled by civil wars and the strong opposi-
tion of the Umayyad clan of Mecca and Damas-

cus. Ali was assassinated by a disgruntled former
supporter, one of the Khawarij, thereby setting a
pattern for martyrdom that would eventually pro-
foundly shape Shii thought and worship. Muslim
factions in the Hijaz and southern Iraq continued
to agitate for a male descendant of Muhammad's
family to claim leadership of the ultima, and a
number arose and were defeated. Foremost among
these was Ali's son Husayn, who was killed by
Umayyad forces at Karbala in southern Iraq in
680, together with most of his male supporters.
This event solidified martyrdom for a just cause
as a key component of Shii piety.

Another significant stage in the development of
Twelve-Imam Shiism occurred during the imam-
ate of Jaafar al-Sadiq (ca. 699-765), the great-
grandson of Husayn. A highly respected scholar
in Medina, he lived when the Abbasid Revolu-
tion overturned the UMAYYAD CALIPHATE and then
turned against Shii partisans who had been their
allies against the Umayyads. Jaafar was reportedly
imprisoned several times by the Abbasid caliph
al-Mansur (r. 754-775) and chose to distance him-
self from anti-Abbasid politics as a consequence.
Despite difficulties, he won a wide following as
both a scholar and a proponent of political quiet-
ism, which developed into the doctrine of taqiyya,
or pious concealment of one's Shii beliefs in the
face of persecution or punishment. He has also
been credited with affirming his father Muham-
mad al-Baqir's idea of nass, the divinely inspired
designation of an Imam by his predecessor, as a
way to resolve conflicting claims to Alid leader-
ship. To further enhance this idea and elevate
the Imams to a position as leading authorities in
matters of religion, the doctrine of the infallibil-
ity ( isma ) of the Imams was also asserted during
Jaafar's time. Additionally, Shii tradition remem-
bers him as an expert in fiqh (jurisprudence).
Consequently, the Twelver tradition of law is
known as the Jaafari School. Succession to Jaafar
became confused when his designated heir, Ismail,
predeceased him in 755. Those remaining loyal to
Ismail recognized his infant son Muhammad as

Twelve-Imam Shiism 679

considered to be the best of men and the foremost
members of the ahl al-bayt (Muhammad's descen-
dants). Indeed, they are thought to embody a divine
light that is identical to the light that God used to
create the universe. Such beliefs indicate that the
Shia have developed a complex imamology, or set
of doctrines concerning the Imams. The key doc-
trines include nass (divinely inspired designation
by the previous Imam), isma (infallibility and sin-
lessness), ilm (knowledge of Gods revelation and
the law), walaya (expertise in spiritual guidance),
ghayba (occultation of the 12th Imam), and rajaa
(return of the 12th Imam before Judgment Day).
The Imams also epitomize ideas of Martyrdom
( shahada ) and righteous suffering, which open the
way to salvation for the Shii community.

(5) Adi (Divine Justice). Twelve-Imam Shia
accept an understanding of God's justice that
closely resembles that of the Mutazili School.
They consider it to be a rationally based attribute
of God, associated with his wisdom. Because of
this, he is essentially good, and nothing evil or
profane can be attributed to him. Humans, there-
fore arc fully accountable for their disobedience
and evil deeds. On the other hand, the Ashari
School, the leading proponents of Sunni theol-
ogy, argued that God could not be compelled
to always act justly and that ultimately he was
the sole creator of all actions done by humans,
whether good or bad.

LAW, MYSTICISM, AND
RELIGIOUS PRACTICE

Like Sunnis, Twelve-Imam Shia believe that reli-
gious law is based on God's commandments
and prohibitions as conveyed by the Quran and
hadith. They also accept a notion of consensus
Ojmaa) in their jurisprudence. Unlike the Sun-
nis, they give greater weight to human reasoning
or intelligence (aql) in deriving law from God's
revelations, whereas the Sunnis only allow for a
more limited use of analogical reasoning ( qiyas ).
The Shii tradition of fiqh (jurisprudence), known
as the Jaafari School in honor of Jaafar al-Sadiq,

formally developed after the 12th century, which
was well after the major Sunni schools had
formed. Basing their authority on the assertion
that they were representatives of the Hidden
Imam, they have given considerable weight to
both the hadith of the Imams and to reason-
ing, which caused a split between traditionalist
ulama, known as the Akhbari School, and the
rationalists, known as the Usuli School. The
Usuli School, which emphasizes the importance
of ijtihad (individual legal judgment based on
reason) has prevailed in Iran, and it is the school
to which the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d.
1989) and other leading Iranian ulama belong.
On points of practical law, Shii jurisprudence is
similar to that of the Sunnis, with minor varia-
tions. A significant exception in this regard is its
recognition of the institution of temporary mar-
riage, known as mutaa, which is allowed mainly
in Shii Iran and rejected by Sunnis. On the other
hand, Shii/icfh makes divorce in regular marriages
more difficult than in Sunni law.

Running counter to its legal and theologi-
cal rationalism, Twelve-Imam Shiism has also
embraced mysticism, particularly in the form
known as Irfan (theosophy, gnosticism). The Shii
ulama opposed organized tariqa Sufism, which
adversely affected its popularity in Shii commu-
nities, but many of the Persian-speaking ulama
were drawn to the ecstatic poetry of Jalal AL-Din
Rumi (d. 1273), Hafez (d. 1390), and Jami (d.
1492), together with the illuminationist philoso-
phy of Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi (d. 1 191), which
inspired members of the neo-Platonic school of
Isfahan. The two leading mystical thinkers in this
school were Mir Damad (d. 1631) and Mulla
Sadra (d. 1640). Ayatollah Khomeini, the ide-
ologist and leader of the Iranian Revolution of
1978-1979, was a student of irfan, and wrote sev-
eral commentaries and books on the subject.

Twelver Shiis practice the so-called Five Pil-
lars of worship with some variations. They pro-
nounce the shahada , but are allowed to add the
phrase "and Ali is God's friend" at the end. They

,Css5S 680 Twelve-Imam Shiism

are permitted to combine the five daily prayers
into three (morning, afternoon, and evening),
and, in remembrance of the events of Karbala,
they are expected to touch a small block made of
earth from Karbala with their foreheads during
prostrations in daily prayer, rather than the prayer
rug. In addition to giving alms in charity, they also
pay an annual tax of one-fifth of their net income,
called the khums, for the benefit of the ulama,
descendants of Muhammad, orphans, and other
needy individuals. They also are required to per-
form the hajj if they are able, as are Sunnis. Other
obligatory acts include defensive jihad (for men)
and calling on people to do what is good and
avoid what is evil. However, in situations where
their safety and security are in danger, the Shia
are encouraged to practice taqiyya, which allows
them to conceal their Shii beliefs from Sunnis and
others who might harm them.

POPULAR DEVOTIONALISM

The most visible characteristic of Twelver religios-
ity through the centuries has been individual and
communal attachment to the 12 Imams, Fatima,
Muhammad, and other descendants of the holy
family. This is reflected in the cycle of religious
holidays that commemorate the martyrdom of the
Imams each year, as well as in ritual performances,
and sacred art and architecture. The most promi-
nent ritual practices commemorate the martyrdom
of Husayn during Ashura; they involve lamenta-
tions, poetic eulogies, passion plays, sermons,
processions, self-flagellation and mutilation, and
pilgrimage ( ZIYARA ) to Husayns shrine in Karbala,
Iraq. A pilgrim who has gone there is honored by
being called karbalai — as a person who has gone
to Mecca for the hajj is called hajji. The tombs of
other Imams and their descendants are also the
objects of pilgrimage, including those of women,
such as Sayyida Zaynab, the sister of Husayn, in
Damascus, and the Fatima Maasuma, sister of
Imam Rida, the eighth Imam, in Qumm. Addi-
tionally, the Shia have constructed special ritual
centers for local performances of Ashura obser-

vances that are known variously as husayniyyci s,
imambarahs , imambargas, and taaziyakhanas.

POLITICAL SHISM AND REFORM

While religious traditionalism and popular devo-
tion to the Imams remain important aspects of
Twelve-Imam Shiism in the late 20th and early
21st centuries, it, like Sunnism, has also been
affected by the far-reaching impact of religious
reform movements and political activism. Among
the ulama political activism became significant
in the late 19th century as popular opposition to
concessions made to the British by the shah led to
the Tobacco Revolt of 1892, which was legitimated
by a fatwa from Hujjat al-lslam Mirza Shirazi. The
ulama were also active in the Constitutional Revo-
lution of 1905-11, standing both for and against
limiting the shah's power with a constitutional
monarchy. In addition to anti-imperialism, several
leading Shii ulama criticized Shii traditionalism
and promoted pan-Islamism and religious reform
as a way for Muslims to meet the challenges of
COLONIALISM and modernity. Leading reformer-
activists during this period included Jamal al-Din
al-Afghani (d. 1897) and Hadi Najmabadi (d.
1902). Iranian ulama as a whole supported the
establishment of the Pahlavi dynasty in the 1920s,
even though they ended up opposing its secular
modernization policies and efforts on behalf of
women. Their opposition intensified in the 1960s
when Muhammad Reza Shah (Pahlavi) (r. 1941-
79) launched his modernization program, known
as the White Revolution. Religious and secular
opposition alike coalesced around the figure of
Khomeini and led to the Iranian Revolution of
1978-79, which ended the Pahlavi dynasty and
established a new government based on Khomei-
nis ideology of Islamic government ( wilayat al-
faqih ), much to the dismay of Iranian democrats
and leftist parties. Khomeinis revolutionary Shii
message and the Shii liberation theology of Ali
Shariati (d. 1977) energized Islamic movements
and Shii communities in much of the Middle
East and South Asia. Even though Khomeini

Twelve-Imam Shiism 681

favored building bridges with Sunni Muslims
with respect to law and doctrine, his success was
seen as a political threat by Sunni leaders in Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain, and Iraq. Indeed, these govern-
ments, together with that of Pakistan undertook
repressive measures against Shii organizations
and subjects, and Iraq entered into an eight-year
war of attrition with Iran in 1980-88, supported
by an alliance of Sunni Arab governments. At the
same time, although Shii militant and political
organizations favored the establishment of Islamic
governments based on the sharia, many did not
accept Iranian-style rule by the mullahs.

In Iraq, Shii authorities had cooperated with
the Ottomans in the 19th century to promote
tribal settlement and agricultural development,
one result of which was conversion of many of
these Arab tribes to Shiism. Iraqi Shiis joined with
Sunni tribes in 1920 to oppose the British occupa-
tion and mandate authority that they established
at the end of World War 1. The revolt failed, and
the British retaliated by giving the Sunnis political
dominion of the country and engaging in policies
designed to alienate Arab Shii ulama from their
Iranian co-religionists. The rise of socialist and
Marxist movements in Iraq and Iran attracted
urban Shii youth, especially after World War 11
and the end of British colonial influence. The
Iraqi Shii clergy, experiencing a decline in status,
regarded leftist movements and secular national-
ism with suspicion and countered by organizing
their own religio-political parties and movements,
the foremost of which are the Daawa Party and
the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in
Iraq. These organizations were persecuted by Sad-
dam Husayns Baathist government, and many of
their leaders were imprisoned and executed.

Lebanon became another center of Twelve-
Imam Shii political activism, particularly through
the influence of a young Iranian Shii mullah from
Najaf, Musa al-Sadr (d. 1978), who won Leba-
nese Shii support among those who had become
disenchanted with secular Arab nationalist and
leftist movements. In 1975 he formed the Amal

militia, which became a Shii fighting force in the
Lebanese civil war and which trained other Islamic
militias, including the Revolutionary Guards of
Iran. Another Shii militant organization, Hizbul-
lah, superseded Amal in the 1980s and remains a
leading force in Lebanese politics today. In addition
to its militancy and political strength, which were
inspired by Khomeini's success in Iran, it has also
become active in providing needed social services
and financial aid to Lebanese Shiis. It operates one
of the major Arabic language satellite television
stations in the Middle East. However, several gov-
ernments, including those of the United States and
Israel, regard it as an Islamic terrorist organization.

When the United States and coalition forces
overthrew the Baathist government of Saddam
Husayn in 2003, they created conditions that
made it possible for Iraq's Shii majority to estab-
lish the Arab world's first modern Shii state, which
is now in the hands of competing, and sometimes
clashing, political parties. The wider Middle East
region as a consequence is witnessing significant
Shii political activism and Iranian influence, as
well as violent confrontations with Sunni govern-
ments and Islamist groups such as al-Qaida and
the Taliban. These conflicts are already spilling
beyond the Middle East to Afghanistan and Paki-
stan, and they are likely to complicate efforts to
stabilize the region for years to come.

See also authority; batin ; colonialism; commu-
nism; constitution; Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn;
Ghadir Khumm; Gulf States; Gulf Wars; husayni-
yy a; imam; Mujahidin-i Khalq; politics and Islam;

RENEWAL AND REFORM MOVEMENTS; SAYYID; TAFSIR.

Further reading: Kamran Scot Aghaie, ed., The Women
of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses
in Modern Shii Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2005); Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the
Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change
in Shiite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press. 1987); William C. Chittick, ed.,
A Shiite Anthology (Albany: Slate University of New York
Press, 1981); Heinz Halm. Shia Islam: From Religion to

ulama (also ulema; Arabic: plural of alim,
“possessor of knowledge”)

The chief religious authorities in Islam are the
ulama. In addition to scholars and teachers, they
include jurists, judges, preachers, imams (prayer
leaders), market inspectors, and advisers to rul-
ers. The ulama view themselves as the heirs of the
prophet Muhammad (ca. 570-632) in matters of
religious law (sharia) and tradition, the masters
of the Quran and hadith, and moral guardians
of the community of believers. They support
their claims to religious authority by invoking
the Quranic injunction, “Obey God, the Prophet,
and those who have authority among you ” (italics
added, Q 4:59). They are not a priesthood, how-
ever, since they do not conduct sacramental rites
on behalf of the laity. Nor do they administer a
“church" or congregation like priests and minis-
ters do in Christianity. Rather, the ulama are more
like Jewish rabbis; they advise people about Gods
commandments and prohibitions, and they issue
opinions and judgments in matters of dispute or
legal necessity. Their status varies greatly, from
being half-literate caretakers at village mosques
to being highly esteemed scholars patronized
by the powerful and wealthy in the major urban
centers of Islamdom.

In Sunni Islam, which embodies the majority
of Muslims, there is no central religious author-
ity like a Roman Catholic pope or Orthodox
Christian patriarch. Rather, the authority of
Sunni ulama is built upon a web of relations that
extends from the mosque or madrasa (religious
college) to the palace, marketplace, bazaar,
neighborhood, household, and across entire
regions from North Africa and Andalusia to India
and beyond. Only in the era of Ottoman rule was
an official ranking recognized, focused on the
figure of the mufti. This office became decentral-
ized with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
after World War 1. Shii ulama differ from Sunni
ulama; their authority is based on belief in the
infallibility of the Imams, venerated descendants
of Muhammad's household (ahl al-bayt). As a
consequence, Shii ulama, particularly in Twelve-
Imam Shiism, have developed a centralized hier-
archy since the 18th century, with the top ranks
held by senior jurists known as ayatollahs. The
most highly ranked of these, determined by con-
sensus of the ulama on the basis of the jurist’s
knowledge and reputation, is the marjaa al-taqlid
(source of imitation). Shii ulama, like their Sunni
counterparts, also depend on extensive networks
of support and patronage.

683

^ 684 ulama

More is known about the ulama than any
other social group in Islamic history, thanks to
the voluminous amount of biographical literature
that they created over the centuries. Studies of this
literature have shown that ulama were recruited
from different walks of life, but they were usually
supported by the ruling class, wealthy merchants
and landholders, who earned merit for their gen-
erosity. After obtaining a primary EDUCATION at
a kuttab or at home (if the father was himself a
scholar), a would-be scholar went to a madrasa
to study with a master teacher, or select group of
scholars, of the Islamic sciences. Students (sing.
talib, seeker) traveled far from home and often
attended several different madrasas, which served
as pathway for upward mobility. The hadith-based
notion of “seeking knowledge, even in China" has
been a guiding dictum for learning in Islamic tra-
dition. The madrasa, an institution that originated
in the 1 Oth— 1 1 th century, was usually associated
with a particular tradition of Islamic law (mcidh-
hab ) — Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki, or Hanbali for Sun-
nis, and Jaafari for Shiis. Some madrasas included
teachers of more than one legal tradition.

The main subject taught was Islamic juris-
prudence (f/QH), together with quranic studies,
hadith and hadith criticism, as well as a variety of
secondary subjects (for example, Arabic grammar,
rhetoric, logic, dialectical theology, and history).
For their lessons, students congregated around
their teachers, forming circles (sing, halqa ) to
study their books with them and hear their com-
mentaries. When a session was completed they
would form their own study circles to discuss
their lessons further and assist each other in
memorizing the texts and commentaries. When
a student mastered a book, he would receive a
certificate ( ijazci ) from his teacher, which usually
would qualify the student to teach the book to
others. Students, therefore, could collect several
certificates in their course of study, and move into
the ranks of the ulama based on the knowledge of
the Islamic sciences they had acquired in madrasas
at the feet of their teachers. Although women were

excluded from the medieval madrasa system, the
biographical dictionaries mention that some were
included among the ulama nevertheless. They
were known especially as scholars and teachers of
hadith, and usually they gained their expertise at
home from male scholars in their families.

Through the centuries the ulama were able to
establish a sphere of authority for themselves in
religious matters without undue interference from
the state, despite the fact that they often depended
on rulers for patronage and protection. They did
this by granting legitimacy to them and maintain-
ing close relations with the populace. The ulama
often endorsed popular customs and religious
devotionalism, or remained neutral. The evidence
indicates that most accepted Sufi ideas, such as
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111), and were even
members of Sufi brotherhoods, such as Ahmad
Sirhindi (d. 1624). The antipathy of the ulama to
aspects of Sufism and popular saint veneration has
been exaggerated by modern scholars of Islamic
studies, and was limited to a relatively small
number of literalists, such as Taqi al-Din Ahmad
ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and Muhammad ibn Abd al-
Wahhab (d. 1792), until the 20th century.

The establishment of colonial regimes by
European powers during the 19th and 20th cen-
turies, followed by the emergence of new nation-
states in Muslim lands, contributed significantly
to undermining the authority of the traditional
ulama. These governments established secular
laws and legal systems that emulated those of
western Europe, effectively displacing the ulama
in that area. The opening of schools based on
modern curricula undermined the preeminence
of the ulama in the area of education and pro-
duced a literate public who could study Islamic
texts themselves, or appropriate new forms of
secular and techno-scientific knowledge from
post-Enlightenment Europe. These developments
helped compel ulama in different regions to
engage in Islamic reform programs, as exempli-
fied by the efforts of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d.
1897), Muhammad Abduh (d. 1903), Muhammad

Umar ibn al-Khattab 685

Rashid Rida (d. 1935), and the Deoband move-
ment in Indo-Pakistan. Despite these efforts, the
ulama found themselves blamed for the intellec-
tual backwardness and political weakness of their
societies by secular Muslims, on the one hand,
and advocates of political Islam like Sayyid Qutb
( d. 1966) and Abu al-Ala Mawdudi (d. 1979),
on the other. Even though the ulama were abol-
ished in Turkey in the 1920s and became little
more than government employees in countries
such as Egypt, they have undergone a significant
transformation in a number of countries recently,
as exemplified by their influence in Saudi Arabia
and their involvement in Pakistani politics and
the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The clear-
est example of this trend is that of Iran, where
Shii ulama under the leadership of Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) established a revo-
lutionary Islamic government in 1979, an event
unprecedented in the history of Islam. The U.S.-
led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 gave
Shii ulama in that country, many with links to
neighboring Iran, an opportunity to take a leading
role in religious and political affairs.

See also ayatollah; biography; colonialism;
hisba; ijmaa ; ijtihad; imam; Islamism; mullah; Otto-
man dynasty; Pakistan; renewal and reform
movements; secularism; shaykh; student.

Further reading: Jonathan P. Berkey, Transmission of
Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic
Education (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1992); R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A
Framework for Inquiry. Rev. cd. (Princeton. N.J.: Princ-
eton University Press. 1991), 187-208; Joseph A.
Kechechian, “The Role of the Ulama in the Politics of
an Islamic State." International Journal of Middle East
Studies 18 (1986): 53-71; Ira M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities
in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1967); Mojan Momen, An Introduc-
tion to Shii Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1985); Stephen Sharot. A Comparative Sociol-
ogy of World Religions: Virtuosos , Priests, and Popular
Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2001),

Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary
Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 2002).

Umar ibn al-Khattab (586-644)

(r. 634-644) second Muslim caliph, established the
political structure of the Islamic empire
A member of the Adi clan of the Quraysh tribe,
Umar ibn al-Khattab was born in Mecca. Initially
an opponent of Muhammad, he converted to
Islam in about 615. He went on to become one of
Muhammad's closest advisers, accompanying him
to Medina in 622 during the Hijra. He became the
Prophets father-in-law when Muhammad married
his daughter, Hafsa. After Muhammad s death
in 632 Umar supported Abu Bakr (r. 632-634)
to succeed him; he himself succeeded Abu Bakr
shortly afterward, becoming the second of the
four Sunni “rightly guided" caliphs, or Rashidun,
which include Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644-655)
and Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656-661). Umar was the
first caliph to adopt the title Amir al-Muminin, or
commander of the faithful.

Under Umars rule, the Islamic state expanded
from a local principality to a major power. He
continued the military campaigns begun by Abu
Bakr, resulting in the conquest of Syria, Palestine,
Egypt, Iraq, and Iran. Umar established guide-
lines for administering these new conquests. He
left the conquered peoples in possession of the
land and did not require them to serve in his army
or attempt to convert them to Islam; in return,
they paid tribute to the government. As governors
and administrators, Umar appointed skillful man-
agers who were loyal to him. He also established
garrison cities to administer the newly conquered
territory; they included Basra, at the head of the
Persian Gulf; Kufa, on the Euphrates River; and
Fustat, later to become Cairo, just below the Nile
Delta. He instituted the empires judiciary, set up
a postal system, and introduced a system of taxes
to finance the state. Umar is also credited with
instituting the use of the Islamic calendar. In

‘ CtfS3 686 Umar Tal

644, Umar was assassinated by a slave who had a
personal grudge against him. Umar is said to have
appointed a committee to choose the next caliph;
they named Uthman as his successor.

See also Companions of the Prophet.

Kate O'Halloran

Further reading: Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the
Age of the Caliphates (London: Longman, 1985); Wil-
ferd Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of
the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997).

Umar Tal (Al-Hajj Umar) (1797-1864)

Tijani Sufi shaykh who launched jihad to reform
Islamic practice and resist French colonial expansion in
West Africa during the mid- 1 9th century
Born in Futa Toro (in modern-day Senegal), Umar
Tal joined the Tijani Sufi order at the age of 18.
As a young man, Umar departed his homelands
for an extended pilgrimage to Mecca and the east-
ern Islamic lands. While in Mecca, Umar studied
under the Tijani SHAYKH Muhammad al-Ghali,
who appointed him as the representative for the
order in West Africa. After three years in the cast,
Umar returned to West Africa, staying in Sokoto
for some six years. In 1838 he settled in Futajal-
lon (Senegal), where he established a reputation
as a holy man and mystic.

By 1849 the local tribal authorities in Futa Jal-
lon became concerned by the large number of the
shaykh's followers and his increasing vehemence in
preaching Islamic revival. Forced to leave the region,
Umar retreated to Dinguiray, where he established a
community. In imitation of the prophet Muhammad,
Umar declared that his flight had been his own Hijra
and he began to recruit warriors and assemble weap-
ons in preparation for jihad against the ungodly rul-
ers who opposed his message. During the next 15
years, Umar and his followers launched countless
attacks upon surrounding communities, resulting
in a state of some 150,000 square miles in the region
of modern-day Guinea, Mali, and Mauritania. In

1862 he conquered Hamdullahi on the Bani River
and sacked TIMBUKTU. However, tribal resistance led
to a siege of Hamdullahi, in which Umar and his fol-
lowers were trapped for some eight months before
he ordered the town to be burned and fled to the
nearby cliffs of Bandiagara. Here he died mysteri-
ously in February 1864. The empire that he estab-
lished, bequeathed to his son, Ahmadu, collapsed
into civil war, and Ahmadu was finally driven out of
Nioro in 1891, effectively ending Umarian author-
ity in the region. Despite the short duration of the
state he established, al-Hajj Umars jihad was one of
a number of similar reform movements that revived
Islam and resisted the spread of French colonial
authority in 19th-century West Africa.

See also renewal and reform movements.

Stephen Cory

Further reading: John H. Hanson, Migration, Jihad, and
Muslim Authority in West Africa (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1996); B. O. Oloruntimehin, The
Segu Tukulor Empire (London: Longman Group, 1972);
David Robinson, The Holy War of Umar Tal (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1985); John Ralph Willis, In
the Path of Allah: The Passion of al-Hajj Vmar (London:
Frank Cass, 1989).

Umayyad Caliphate (661-750)

The Umayyad Caliphate was a Sunni dynasty that
expanded the area of Islamic rule and developed
a distinct Islamic culture. During the years of
Umayyad rule, the Islamic state changed from a
coalition of Arab tribes to a centralized empire
that stretched from present-day Pakistan to the
Atlantic Ocean and included the Arabian Pen-
insula, Iran, Egypt, much of North Africa, and
the Iberian Peninsula. This vast area was held
together by an Islamic culture that included a
common language and coinage. At the same time,
the caliphate created permanent divisions within
the Muslim community, or umma.

The Umayyads came to power in the turbulent
period following the death of Uthman ibn Affan

umma 687

(r. 644-655), the third CALIPH, and the acces-
sion of Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656-661). Uthman's
cousin, Muawiya, who was governor of Syria,
refused to recognize Ali as caliph. Civil war broke
out between supporters of Ali and Muawiya; Ali
was assassinated, and Muawiya declared himself
caliph. Muawiya was a member of the Umayyad
family, the wealthiest and most powerful branch
of the Quraysh in MECCA. Muawiya moved the
capital of the Islamic state from Medina to Damas-
cus, Syria. He also changed the caliphate in fact,
if not in principle, to a dynasty by naming his son
as his successor, thus setting a precedent for the
caliphate passing from father to son.

Under the Umayyads, the process of Islamic
expansion began again. Parts of Egypt that had
fallen under Byzantine control were retaken.
Umayyad armies moved west across North Africa
to the Atlantic coast. In 71 1 they crossed the Strait
of Gibraltar and began the conquest of Andalusia
(Spain); soon, the entire Iberian Peninsula was
under Muslim control. Their advance into Europe
was finally stopped in 732 at the Battle of Tours,
when Charles Martel of France won a decisive
engagement against a Muslim raiding force. In the
east, the expansion continued, eventually reach-
ing as far as the borders of present-day India.

As the Umayyads increased the extent of their
empire, they set in place systems to unite the
disparate peoples of the empire. Abd al-Malik (r.
685-705) declared Arabic the official language
of the empire. Up to this time, local govern-
ment had been conducted in the local language;
now, all government business was conducted in
Arabic. The Umayyads introduced a common
coinage throughout the empire, called dinars.
The common currency made it easier to conduct
business between different parts of the empire.
The Umayyads also spread Islamic religious archi-
tecture throughout the empire. When a region
was conquered, a mosque was built for communal
prayer and to give thanks to God. Although these
mosques were built from local materials, they
eventually featured the same essential elements: a

MINARET, a MIHRAB , and an ablution fountain. The
introduction of a common language, currency,
and religious architecture helped develop a dis-
tinctive Islamic culture.

After about 90 years of Umayyad rule, the
empire faced serious internal challenges. By 732,
the armies were making fewer conquests. This
stopped the flow of captured wealth into the econ-
omy. At the same time, many non-Muslims within
the empire had converted to Islam. As a result,
they paid less in taxes, decreasing a steady source
of revenue. The divisions within Islam itself also
came to the fore. Muslims who had supported Ali
as caliph because of his family ties to Muham-
mad were known as shiat A/i, “party of Ali,” or
the Shia (sec Shiism). They saw the Umayyads
as usurpers who had seized the caliphate from
the rightful head of the Muslim community. This
internal conflict was exploited by the Abbasids,
who claimed the caliphate based on the descent
of Abbas, Muhammad's uncle. In 747 this dissen-
sion led to rebellion against the Umayyads; in 750
the Umayyad caliphate was overthrown, and the
Abbasid Caliphate began.

Sec also Arabic language and literature;
FITNA .

Kate O'Halloran

Further reading: Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the
Age of the Caliphates (Harlow, England: Longman,
2003); Wilfcrd Madelung. The Succession to Muhammad:
A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999).

umma (Arabic: community, nation, tribe,
people)

In each of the three Abrahamic religions the idea
of an overarching community of the faithful holds
great importance alongside doctrines of individual
responsibility before God. The foremost concept
of such a community in Judaism is that of Israel,
or the people of Israel (Bene Yisrael). In Chris-
tianity it is the church ( ekklesia ). Muslims feel

' C5S5D 696 university

University Press, 2005, and E-book); Yvonne Y. Haddad
and Jane 1. Smith, cds., Muslim Communities in North
America (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1994, and E-book); Yvonne Y. Haddad, Jane I. Smith, and
Kathleen M. Moore, Muslim Women in America: The Chal-
lenge of Islamic Identity Today (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2006, and E-book); Aminah Beverly McCloud,
African American Islam (New York: Routledge, 1995);
Larry Poston, Islamic da'wah in the West: Muslim Mission-
ary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Carolyn Moxley
Rouse, Engaged Surrender: African American Women and
Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004,
and E-book); Jane I. Smith, Islam in America (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1999).

university

While the content and form of instruction has
dramatically changed with the introduction of
Western-style universities in the 19th and 20th
centuries, higher education in the Islamic world
has had a long and venerable history. Important
institutions of learning associated with mosques
such as al-AzHAR in Egypt, al-Zaytuna in Tunisia,
and al-Qarawiyyin in Morocco arose during the
ninth and 10th centuries, preceding the develop-
ment of universities even in Europe. The madrasa,
or school of Islamic law, was the primary teaching
institution. Additional institutions such as the
khanqah or ^awiya, two kinds of Sufi institutions,
later came to supplement the education available
from the madrasa. For information on any of these
traditional institutions of higher learning, please
see relevant encyclopedia articles, as this entry
will address the development of Western-style
learning in the Islamic world.

Increasing European dominance and encoun-
ters with colonialism led leaders in Muslim
lands to undertake educational reform. Technical
training schools, usually schools of medicine or
ones focused on military skills, were founded
during the first half of the 19th century. With the
introduction of Western-style institutions such

as these, often with help from European experts,
the way was paved for the establishment of other
colleges or faculties. These institutions often con-
tributed to the early founding of a national uni-
versity, as in the Ottoman Empire (1900), Egypt
(1906), Syria (1924), and Iran (1934). Else-
where, as in South Asia, the colonial governments
themselves founded universities. The first three
universities in the region were founded in British
India in 1857, with three additional universities
established before the end of the century, includ-
ing one in Lahore. Missionaries, too, played a
role in founding universities, specifically in Leba-
non in 1864 and 1875. However, the balance of
Muslim-majority countries did not witness the
establishment of Western-style universities until
the postwar period, for example, Indonesia and
Malaysia (1949), Libya (1955), Iraq (1956),
Saudi Arabia (1957), and Kuwait (1960).

All of these universities were modeled on
Western-style teaching methods and university
curricula, and in some cases they offered instruc-
tion only in Western languages. In the 1970s a
movement began to establish Islamic universi-
ties, or to “Islamize" teaching at existing uni-
versities. At Saudi Arabia's Islamic University of
Medina, traditional subjects are taught by Western
teaching methods. The First World Conference
on Muslim Education in Mecca, held in 1977,
prompted Malaysia and Pakistan to begin the pro-
cess of founding specifically Islamic universities,
and Bangladesh and Niger followed. Soon after,
Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and other
states introduced courses in Islamic culture into
their required university curricula. Independently,
the textbooks and curricula of Iranian universities
were “Islamized" following the 1979 revolution.

Sec also Abduh, Muhammad; Aligarh; kuttab;

RENEWAL MOVEMENTS; SECULARISM; WESTERNIZATION.

Shauna Huffaker

Further reading: H. H. Bilgrami and Sycd Ali Ashraf, The
Concept of an Islamic University (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 1985); George Makdisi, The Rise of the

‘ CtfS3 698 Usama bin Ladin

student. It was there, when he was 15 years old,
that he experienced a religious and political awak-
ening. The school boasted a Western-style cur-
riculum, but Usamas conversion occurred in an
after-school study group conducted by a physical
education instructor who was a member of the
Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Usama
had been raised as a devout Sunni Muslim, but
he now became extremely pious compared to his
friends and other members of his family. He refused
to wear Western dress outside school, began fast-
ing twice a week, prayed frequently, memorized
chapters from the Quran, and grew strict with his
younger brothers and sister. He became more aware
of, and concerned about, the Muslim world, par-
ticularly with regard to the situation in PALESTINE. It
is thought had he had actually been recruited into
the Muslim Brotherhood at this time, and started
the reading the books of Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966),
his brother Muhammad Qutb (b. 1915), and the
medieval Hanbali jurist and theologian Taqi al-Din
ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). Usama graduated from Al-
Thaghr in 1976, then enrolled at King Abd al-Aziz
ibn Saud University in Jeddah, where he majored in
business administration. He also became involved
in the family construction business.

In December 1979, Soviet troops invaded
Afghanistan. Like many other Muslims, bin Ladin
was shocked and angry. An acquaintance of bin
Ladins, a Palestinian scholar named Abd Allah
Azzam (1941-1989), moved to Pakistan to join
the Afghan resistance. He made frequent trips to
Peshawar, the headquarters of the resistance. He
also often returned to Jeddah, where he stayed
in bin Ladins home and held meetings to recruit
young Saudis to join the Afghans. Bin Ladin soon
started raising funds for the anti-Soviet jihad;
eventually, he went to Afghanistan and became
a mujahid himself. This is when he and Ayman
al-Zawahiri (b. 1951), an infamous Egyptian
jihadist, co-founded the Arab Mujahidin Services
Bureau, the predecessor of al-Qaida.

In 1988, with a group of other Afghanistan
war veterans, bin Ladin founded al-Qaida al-

Askariya (the military base). The goal of the
new organization was to act as a training system
for mujahidin. In 1990, after the Soviets pulled
out of Afghanistan, bin Ladin returned to Saudi
Arabia, where he was seen as a hero of the jihad.
Then, later that same year, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Because he opposed the presence of U.S. troops in
Saudi Arabia, bin Ladin offered the Saudi king his
own figures, trained in Afghanistan, to drive the
Iraqis out of Kuwait. When the king refused his
offer, bin Ladin criticized the Saudi royal family
for their dependence on the U.S. military. In 1992
bin Ladin moved to Sudan, where he set up a new
base for mujahidin operations. His continued criti-
cism of the Saudi king led to his being stripped of
his Saudi passport and citizenship.

On December 29, 1992, a bomb exploded at a
hotel in Aden, Yemen; two people were killed. It
is believed that this was the first bombing attack
in which bin Ladin was involved. Since then, he
has been implicated in funding or mastermind-
ing attacks in Somalia and New York in 1993, in
Saudi Arabia in 1995, in Kenya and Tanzania in
1998, against the USS Cole in 2000, and in the
September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and
Washington, D.C.

In 1996 bin Ladin was expelled from Sudan;
returning to Afghanistan, he became a supporter of
the Taliban regime there. After the September 11
attacks, the United States led an international coali-
tion to invade Afghanistan, ousting the Taliban
government; however, bin Ladin was not captured.
He has been indicted in U.S. courts on a number of
charges connected with different attacks, although
he has not been charged in connection with the
September 1 1 attacks. Many claims have been
made since 2001 about bin Ladins whereabouts,
but his location remains unknown.

See also Gulf wars; oil; salafism; terrorism;
Wahhabism.

Juan E. Campo and Kate O'Halloran

Further reading: Peter Bergen. The Osama Bin Laden
I Know: An Oral History of al-Qaeda’s Leader (New

V

veil

Veil is the most common English translation
of the Arabic word HIJAB (a word whose many
meanings also include “cover" or “screen"), most
frequently understood as the head scarf worn by
some Muslim women. The matter of the veil is a
highly contentious and controversial one. There
is much historical evidence indicating that the
practice of veiling is not peculiar to Islam, and
nothing in the Quran explicitly or unequivocally
requires it of women. Muslim proponents of the
hijab often refer to Quranic verses 24:30-31,
which direct both Muslim men and women to
dress and interact modestly, and also instruct
women not to display their beauty except to their
husbands and close relatives. The word hijab
does not appear here; rather the reference is to
the draping of khumur — a type of covering over
the hair worn by some women in seventh-cen-
tury Arabia — over the chest. Nor does the word
appear in verse 33:39, which instructs women to
cover their persons using jalabib (loose cloaks).
During the time of the prophet Muhammad (d.
632) only the women of his own family, who
were held to unique standards of modesty, veiled
themselves. Muslims continue to debate today
both the issue of whether the Quran prescribes
a specific type of covering of womens bodies or

rather modest clothes for women in general as
well as the stringency of that prescription.

Colonial discourses in the Euro-American and
Muslim worlds have played a significant role in
constructing images and perceptions about the
veil. The history of Western colonization in Mus-
lim countries recounts European manipulation
of the veil as a symbol of Islam's backward and
barbaric nature and as evidence of the necessity for
occupying and civilizing Muslim societies. In turn,
Muslim resistance to colonialism has often recon-
figured the veil as a symbol of its rcligio-national
essence. Some assumptions about the veil within
Euro-American feminist discourse have also tended
to oversimplify its meanings for Muslim women. In
all cases, debates on the veil have tended to ignore
the agency of Muslim women and the rich, varied
expressions of their veiling, which, to name only a
few, may include statements about a womans class
standing, her religious or national identification, or
even her resistance to Western modes of sexuality.

See also burqa; purdah.

Aysha A. Hidayatullah

Further reading: Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in
Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press. 1992); Fadwa El Guindi,
Veil: Modesty ; Privacy and Resistance (Oxford, U.K.:

702

vizier 703

Berg. 1999); Aysha Hidayatullah, “Islamic Conceptions
of Sexuality.” In Sexuality and the Worlds Religions ,
edited by David W. Machacek and Melissa M. Wilcox,
255-292. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2003).

vizier

The Arabic word wazir (Persian vazir) appears
in the Quran referring to Aaron as Moses' wazir,
or “helper." With the establishment of the Abba-
sid Caliphate in the eighth century c.e. and the
ongoing formalization of government structures,
the vizier became an official government position.
The vizier was usually appointed directly by the
CALIPH, personally responsible to him, and second
only to him in authority. Thus he was the servant
of the ruler, not the state.

The vizier was in charge of the civil admin-
istration, especially the collection of taxes. Gov-
ernment was divided into the “men of the pen”
and the “men of the sword," and the vizier was
the head of the former. At his appointment he
was given, among other things, a golden inkpot
symbolizing his role as the top of the bureaucratic
machinery of the state. Viziers often clashed with
the head of the military branch, the amir al-umara t
particularly over the distribution of revenues.

Perhaps the biggest factor in determining the
power and prestige of the vizier was his own ambi-
tion and personality compared with that of the
ruler and the rival leaders in the military. The vizier
was vulnerable to the personal whims of the ruler
and many a vizier came to an untimely and violent
end. On the other hand, caliphs often played only
symbolic roles and sultans were primarily military
men, leaving the vizier as the effective head of the
government. The office of the vizierate reached
its greatest level of power in the medieval period
under the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk (1018-92).

During the Abbasid period the viziers came
from a few influential families, or they rose
through the ranks of the secretaries and were usu-
ally non-Arab. Often the vizierate could remain
within an influential family for several genera-
tions. Under the Fatimids the vizier was at first in
charge of the civil administration, but in 1074 the
position was taken over by a military man who
combined the traditional authority of the vizier
with that of the amir al-umara (or amir al-djuy-
ush) and basically assumed all real authority from
the Fatimid caliphs. In the Ottoman period the
vizier often began lile as a slave (mamluk), work-
ing his way up and thus owing complete loyalty to
the ruler who had aided his advancement. While
this may have ensured loyalty to the ruler, it often
came at the cost of doing what was in the best
interests of the state. During the late 18th and
19th centuries, as the Ottomans tried to reform
the government in order to keep up with Western
Europe, there were efforts to transform the vizicr-
atc into a position similar to that of prime minis-
ter, but these efforts were ultimately thwarted by
the rulers, who insisted that ministers report to
them directly rather than to the vizier.

Sec also Fatimid dynasty; Ottoman dynasty;
Seljuk dynasty.

Heather N. Keaney

Further reading: Carter V. Findley, Ottoman Civil Official-
dom (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989);
S. D. Goitein. The Origin of the Vizierate and Its True
Character (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968); C. L. Klausner, The
Seljuk Vezirate: A Study of Civil Administration, 1055-1 194
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973); Ann
Lambton. State and Government in Medieval Islam (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1981); Yaacov Lev, State and Soci-
ety in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991).

Wahhabism (Arabic: Wahhabiyya)

Named after its founder, Muhammad ibn Abd
AL-WAHHAB (d. 1792), Wahhabism is the most
important form of militant Islamic reformism to
arise in the Arabian Peninsula. The designation
was first coined with derogatory connotations by
Muslim opponents and observers in Europe and
North America. It refers to a set of doctrines and
practices and to a sectarian movement comprised
of those who embrace them. Allied to the clan
of the A1 Saud from the Najd in central Arabia,
the Wahhabis, who prefer to call themselves the
muwahhidun (unitarians, or those who affirm
the unity of God), played an essential role in the
formation of the modern state of Saudi Arabia.
They have had a significant impact on the ways
Muslims understand and practice their religion in
many parts of the world today.

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was educated by his father
and other ulama in the Hanbali Legal School,
which was the chief school followed by the tribal
communities of the Najd. His thinking was also
shaped by his encounters with reformist scholars
in Mecca and Medina, and by his antipathy for
local religious practices associated with SAINT
shrines, Shiism, and folk medicine. Around 1740
he began to proclaim publicly his reformist mes-
sage about what he believed to be the true Islam.

Basing his ideas on a literal reading of the Quran
and hadith, his teaching affirmed the absolute
oneness of God ( TAWHID ), adherence to the SUNNA
of the prophet Muhammad, and performance of
basic duties of Islamic worship (prayer, almsgiv-
ing, fasting, and hajj). Performance of the Five
Pillars alone was not sufficient in his opinion,
however. Any belief or practice that fell outside
this narrow definition of Islam was held suspect
as an illegitimate innovation (bidaa) or idolatry
(shirk) that could put a Muslim, even an obser-
vant Muslim, outside the bounds of the faith. Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab also called upon Muslims to reject
belief in intercession of saints and Shii Imams; he
wanted them to cease practices such as praying to
the dead and the jinn, performing votive sacrifices,
worshipping sacred trees, and building shrines.
Indeed, a hallmark of Wahhabi religiosity is the
destruction of domed tombs and the burial of the
dead in unmarked graves. The sectarian character
of Wahhabism was not based only upon rejection
of local religious practices that were linked to Shi-
ism and Sufism, however. It also was opposed to
key doctrines held by most Sunni ulama, such as
adherence (taqlid) to the cumulative tradition of
jurisprudence (fiqh), recognition of the sunna of
the Companions of the Prophet and the four first
caliphs on a par with that of Muhammad, and

704

Wahhabism 705

*

Abd al-Aziz’s Wahhabi army (the Ikhwan) on the
march in eastern Arabia, 1911 (Courtesy of the Saudi In for
motion Office)

acceptance of a Muslims faith on the basis only of
declaration of the shahada and performance of the
Five Pillars of worship, without regard to other
beliefs and practices.

Many in the Najd did not readily embrace Ibn
Abd al-Wahhab's condemnation of their dearly
held traditional beliefs and practices, including
many in his own home town, which had expelled
him. Others, however, appear to have been open
to the doctrinal and legal simplicity of his mes-
sage. Without doubt, his reformist agenda bene-
fited greatly from the alliance that he entered with
Muhammad ibn Saud (d. 1765), the head of the
clan of the A1 Saud of Diriyya, a settlement located
near the oasis town of Riyadh. The Saudi shaykh
supported the preachers campaign to realize his
reformist vision through proselytization ( daawa )
and warfare (jihad), in exchange for obtaining
the right to collect zcikat (alms) and obtain reli-
gious legitimation for Saudi rule throughout the
Najd. The first Saudi state, which was created in
1744 and lasted until 1818, was one governed

both by the Wahhabi understanding of the sharia
and tribal custom. It survived the deaths of both
Muhammads, and the alliance between the reli-
gious and the political was carried on by their
heirs, who extended Saudi-Wahhabi rule to the
Shii region of Hasa in the east (1780) and to the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina (1803-04) in the
west. Their jihad depended on the recruitment
of young warriors who came from settlements
that had accepted Saudi-Wahhabi rule and were
attracted to the cause of Islam and the promise of
booty. Additional raids were conducted into Iraq,
where the Shii holy city of Karbala was pillaged
and the shrine of Husayn ibn Ali (d. 680) was
destroyed, and Syria. In 1814 Ottoman authori-
ties retaliated by invading the Najd, destroying
Diriyya, and taking the Saudi leader, Muhammad
ibn Saud's great grandson Abd Allah, to Istanbul,
where he was executed in 1818.

A second, weakened Saudi state based in
Riyadh subsequently arose and lasted until 1891,
when it was brought down by a rival tribal con-
federacy led by the Rashidis of Hail. The third
Saudi-Wahhabi state was created by Abd al-Aziz
ibn Saud (1880-1953), who used his clan’s alli-
ance with the Wahhabis to establish the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and place it under sacred
law, the sharia. Ibn Saud had relatives among the
A1 al-Shaykh, descendants of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
and he had been educated in religious matters by
them. When the Saudis retook Riyadh in 1902,
the Wahhabis swore allegiance to Ibn Saud and
proclaimed him their imam, or community leader.
Among his strongest supporters were the mutaw-
waa, teachers and ritual specialists who had been
propagating Wahhabi doctrines and practices
through madrasas in the oasis settlements of
the Najd since the 18th century. In exchange for
supporting Ibn Saud, they claimed the authority
to enforce the sharia and punish violators. They
stood in the forefront of a revival of the Wahhabi
brand of Islam that swept across the Arabian Pen-
insula under Ibn Saud's leadership. They had also
indoctrinated a new fighting force known as the
Ikhwan (Brotherhood), recruited from Bedouin

'Css'S

706 wahy

tribes that had been recently settled in villages
under the supervision of the mutawwaa and Wah-
habi ulama. The Ikhwan were fierce fighters who
treated the populations of towns that opposed
them brutally. They destroyed any shrines and
tombs that offended their puritanical religious
sensibilities. After the conquest of the Hijaz (west-
ern Arabia), however, they rebelled against Ibn
Saud, who successfully defeated them with the
backing of Wahhabi ulama. In the rebellions after-
math, he centralized his control over the country
and reasserted Saudi authority in political affairs.
The Saudi wars of expansion came to an end with
the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
in 1932.

Wahhabism has developed in two different
directions since the kingdom was founded. On the
one hand, it has become the official religion of a
rapidly modernizing Islamic state, bolstered by oil
wealth. Major decisions are made only after con-
sultation with the Supreme Council of the Ulama,
who claim the right to issue legal opinions and
judgments on the basis of ijtihad (independent
legal reasoning), rather than legislative law. Fam-
ily and political ties continue to bind the Al Saud
to the Al al-Shaykh, who hold the portfolios for
the ministries of religious affairs and justice. In
addition, the mutawwaa serve the state as religious
police, operating as a branch of the Ministry of the
Interior. They strictly enforce conformity to the
staunch moral conservatism of their sect, includ-
ing gender segregation, dress codes, the bans on
alcohol and gambling, and censorship of books,
magazines, television, videos, and music. Reli-
gious courts sentence defendants to death who
have been found guilty of major moral crimes
such as adultery, drug trafficking, and murder.
Saudi state Wahhabism is also often criticized for
the intolerant attitude it holds for other religions
and other forms of Islam.

The second direction that Wahhabism has
taken, particularly among the younger generations
since the 1970s, is sometimes called neo-Wah-
habism, or Salafism. It has been shaped by oppo-

sitional Islamist ideologies espoused by groups
such as the Muslim Brotherhood and radical
jihadist organizations. Proponents of this type of
Wahhabism condemn Saudi government corrup-
tion and injustice and seek to radically transform
other Muslim societies to bring them under the
rule of their concept of the sharia, even through
violence. This kind of Wahhabism is epitomized
by Usama bin Ladin (b. 1957) and al-Qaida. Both
kinds of Wahhabism have achieved global influ-
ence as a result of oil, the print and electronic
media, mass education, labor migration, regional
and international conflicts, and disenchantment
with corrupt and authoritarian governments.

See also Islamism; jihad movements; politics
and Islam; renewal and reform movements.

Further reading: Michael Cook, “On the Origins of
Wahhabism." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3, no.
2 (1992): 191-202; Natana J. DcLong-Bas, Wahhabi
Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004); Joseph A. Kcchcchian,
“The Role of the Ulama in the Politics of an Islamic
State: The Case of Saudi Arabia." International Journal
of Middle East Studies 18 (1986): 53-71; Madawi al-
Rashccd, Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from
a New Generation (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. 2007); . A History of Saudi Arabia (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Ayman al-
Yassini, Religion and State in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1985).

wahy See revelation.

walaya

The Arabic word walaya comes from a root
meaning “to be near." The related concept of
wilaya, generally referring to guardianship or
the authority that derives from it, has a range of
meanings in Islamic law, politics, Shii cosmology,
and Sufism. Wilaya can thus mean legal guardian-
ship, the administration of a province, a province

wali 707

itself, or the sainthood of a Sufi SAINT (wali) or a
Shii imam.

The form walaya is often used in Shiism as
an alternative vocalization of wilaya t to refer to
the spiritual authority thought to reside with the
Imams, and it is thus closely tied to the question of
succession after the death of the prophet Muham-
mad, which is the central point on which Shiis
differ from Sunnis. Shiis believe that Muhammad
designated as his successor his son-and-law and
cousin An ibn Abi Talib when he announced at
the oasis of Ghadir Khumm: “For whomever I am
the authority (mawla), Ali is his authority." Thus,
for Shiis, the spiritual and political authority of
the Muslim community should have passed to Ali.
Though political authority was assumed by three
CALIPHS before it came to Ali, and after his murder
it was claimed by Muawiya and his descendants,
Shiis believe spiritual authority, and especially
esoteric knowledge of the Quran, passed directly
to Ali, and from him to his sons Hasan and
Husayn. Walaya then passed to Husayns son and
continued in a line of descent for another eight
generations (in the dominant Twelver Shiism).
These 12 figures arc known as Imams (leaders),
who served as representatives of God on earth.
The 12th Imam, al-Mahdi, disappeared leaving
no heirs, though he is still thought to maintain a
spiritual presence.

Some Shii scholars distinguish between wilaya
(the authority of the Imams) and walaya , which
refers to devotion and loyally to the Imam, which
is incumbent on Shiis, and is even considered a
pillar of faith.

See also Five pillars; Twelve-Imam Shiism; wali.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn
Tabataba’i, Shi'ite Islam. Translated by Seyyed Hossein
Nasr (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1975); Said Amir Arjomand. The Shadow of God and the
Hidden Imam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1984); Abdulaziz Abdulhussein Sachedina, The Just
Ruler (al-sultan al-’adil) in Shi'ite Islam: The Comprehen-

sive Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

wali

In Arabic, wali (plural awliya ) means someone
who is near, a supporter, a guardian, or a friend,
but most often refers to a saint in the Islamic
world. In this sense, the word is often used in the
expression wali Allah — "Friend of God.” Saints
are found in almost all Islamic countries, but their
status as saints is usually not official, since Islam
has no official process of canonization. Islamic
saints are those who are recognized as such by
the people, usually because they are considered
holy and/or able to perform miracles. They inspire
feelings of reverence in people, and their help is
sought in times of need. This is true for both liv-
ing and dead saints.

While there have been examples of women
saints in Islam, the majority have been men. They
can be of a number of different types of histori-
cal figures: mystics, ascetics, founders of dervish
orders, poets, martyrs, warriors, or descendants of
the Prophet. Most saints arc, however, associated
in some way with Sufism. While their appeal is
mostly to common people, Muslim scholars such
as al-Tirmidhi, Hujwiri, and Ibn al-Arabi have
made them the subject of much study, devising
elaborate hierarchies of saints. Saints arc thought
to be endowed with the blessing (baraka) of God,
which they can transmit to ordinary humans
through contact and which is often thought to be
manifested in miraculous acts ( karamat ), such as
flying, changing form, multiplying food, healing
the sick, and foretelling future events. Legendary
accounts of the lives of many saints have been col-
lected in hagiographies (manakib). While many
people believe in the literal truth of such miracles,
Sufis often focus on their esoteric meanings.
Saints are thought to maintain their power after
their deaths, inspiring believers to make pilgrim-
ages (ziyarat) to their graves, where they may ven-
erate the saint by praying, circumambulating the

708 Webb, Alexander Russell

tomb, sacrificing animals, and leaving offerings.
Pilgrims seek the saints blessing, intercession in
fulfilling personal requests of God such as healing
and fertility, or a mystical experience.

Though some literalist Muslims, influenced
by the writings of the jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad
Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), are opposed to such ven-
eration on the grounds that Islam docs not allow
human intercession between an individual and
God, saints throughout the Islam world continue
to inspire the admiration of Muslims.

See also martyrdom; miracle; prayer; prophets
and prophethood; walaya

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Farid al-Din Attar. Muslim Saints and
Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Auliya (“Memo-
rial of the Saints”). Translated by A. J. Arberry (New
York: Arkana, 1990); Michael Gilsenan, Saint and Sufi
in Modern Egypt: An Essay in the Sociology of Religion
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); Bcrnd Radtkc and
John O'Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic
Mysticism: Two Works by Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (Rich-
mond, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1996); Grace Martin Smith
and Carl W. Ernst, Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam
(Istanbul: Isis Press, 1993).

Webb, Alexander Russell (1846-1916)

American journalist and publisher who was an early
spokesman for Islam in the United States
Alexander Russell Webb, one of the earliest
known American converts to Islam, was born in
Hudson, New York, near the end of the Second
Great Awakening, a period of renewed interest
in religion, spirituality, and social activism. His
father, Alexander Nelson Webb, was a leading
journalist of the time. Webb was raised a Presby-
terian but found the church uninspiring and left it
while still a young man.

Like his father, Webb became a journalist,
working for several newspapers in St. Louis, Mis-
souri, including the Missouri Morning Journal and
the Missouri Republican. While in St. Louis, Webb

became involved in the Theosophical Society, a
group that worked to promote the study of world
religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Zoroastrianism. He developed an interest in spiri-
tuality and religions other than Christianity.

In 1887 President Grover Cleveland named
Webb the American consul to the Philippines,
based in Manila. Although Catholicism was the
dominant religion in the Philippines at the time,
Webb encountered some Muslim merchants from
India and began reading about Islam, including
the writings of members of the Aligarh move-
ment, formed to promote modern education
among Muslims in India. In 1888 Webb produced
a pamphlet in which he declared his conversion to
Islam; he adopted the name Mohammed Alexan-
der Russell Webb.

Over the next few years, Webb corresponded
with Muslim scholars in India, including Ghulam
Ahmad (d. 1908), the leader of the AHMADIYYA
Muslims. In 1892 he resigned his position as
consul and traveled around India, studying and
raising money for an effort to spread Islam in the
United States. When he returned to the United
States in February 1893, he set up the American
Mission in New York, dedicated to spreading
knowledge about Islam. The center, which was
the first mosque in America, included a library
and reading room and offered lectures on Islamic
doctrines and customs. He also set up a publish-
ing arm, the Oriental Publishing Company, which
published his writings, including his major work,
Islam in America. In May 1893 he published the
first issue of Moslem World ; designed to “spread
the light of Islam in America,” it was the earliest
Islamic missionary periodical in the United States,
lasting only until November 1893.

In September 1893 the Worlds Parliament of
Religions, the first formal gathering of representa-
tives of both Eastern and Western spiritual tradi-
tions in the United States, was held in Chicago.
Webb gave two speeches at the parliament: “The
Influence of Islam upon Social Conditions" and
“The Spirit of Islam." Dubbed by the press “the

West Africa 709

Yankee Mohammedan," Webb also spoke about
Islam in private homes and at public speaking
engagements around the country. Webb's mission
and publishing center lacked sufficient funding,
and, by 1896, he ended the mission and moved to
Rutherford, New Jersey, where he again worked as
a journalist. In 1901, in recognition of his advo-
cacy of Islam in general and his defense of Turkey
in particular, Webb was named honorary Turk-
ish consul to New York. He traveled to Istanbul
where Sultan Abdulhamid II (r. 1876-1909) gave
him the third Order of Medjidic and the Medal of
Merit, as well as the honorific title of Bey. Webb
died on October 1, 1916.

See also conversion; daawa; Mohammedanism;
United States.

Kate O'Halloran

Further reading: Umar F. Abd-Allah, A Muslim in
Victorian America: The Life oj Alexander Russell Webb
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Moham-
med Alexander Russell Webb, Yankee Muslim: The
Asian Travels of Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb
(Rockville, Md.: Wildside Press, 2006); Mohammed
Alexander Russell Webb, Islam in America: A BrieJ
Statement oj Mohammedanism and an Outline of the
American Islamic Propaganda (New York: Oriental
Publishing, 1893).

West Africa

Islam entered West Africa within the first decade
after the death of the prophet Muhammad (d.
632), when Muslim armies set out westward
from Egypt. The first Arab expeditions were
launched across the Sahara in the eighth century,
although no permanent Muslim presence seems
to have been established in sub-Saharan Africa
until 200 years later. That presence was brought
about through the efforts of Muslim traders, who
engaged in business along the lucrative Saharan
caravan routes, and who introduced their faith to
West African businessmen and tribal chiefs.

In the late 11th century, the West African king-
dom of Ghana is said to have converted to Islam
through the influence of the Berber Almoravid
dynasty. By the 14th century Muslim chiefs ruled
over the Kingdom of Mali, the best known of whom,
Mansa Musa (r. 1307-32), made the pilgrimage to
Mecca in 1324. The rise of Islamic influence in West
Africa continued under the Songhay dynasty, which
ruled over vast domains centered on the Niger River
during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Songhay
(Songhai) Empire included Timbuktu, known as the
“city of scholars," a location renowned throughout
the region for Islamic jurisprudence.

By the 18th century, West Africa was impacted
by European colonial expansion. European pur-
suit of raw materials, gold, and slaves stimulated
Islamic revival movements that resulted in the
“JIHAD states” of West Africa during the 18th and
19th centuries. The leaders of these states empha-
sized Islamic education and sought to purify
society, replacing non-Islamic practices with laws
and cultural norms deemed to be more faithful to
Islam. During this period, Islam was transformed
from the religion of the political and religious elite
to becoming the faith of the masses. Sufi orders
such as the Qadiriyya and the Tijaniyya were also
instrumental in popularizing the Islamic faith
by creating a synthesis between African cultural
practices and Islamic principles.

Ironically, European colonial rule instituted
changes during the late 19th and early 20th cen-
turies that also aided the spread of Islam. The
influence of Muslim religious leaders expanded as
they gained credibility for their heroic resistance to
colonial repression. In addition, the creation of new
urban centers consisting of people uprooted from
traditional tribal life caused many seekers to turn
to Islam for identity and comfort. During the post-
colonial era, the Maliki Legal School continues
to dominate West African Islam and the many Sufi
orders are also very influential. Revivalist move-
ments originating in the Middle East have increas-
ingly influenced West Africans. Such influences
have frequently heightened tensions with Christian

710 West Bank

communities in many African states, sometimes
leading to interfaith violence. The continents larg-
est country, Nigeria, has been particularly plagued
by conflict between its Christian majority and size-
able Muslim minority population.

As the 21st century opens, West African Mus-
lims face the critical challenges of uniting Muslims
from many backgrounds and persuasions, main-
taining peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims,
and helping their societies overcome crippling
problems such as poverty, underdevelopment, and
corrupt governments.

See also Christianity and Islam; colonial-
ism; East Africa; Muridi Sufi Order; Qadiri Sufi
Order; Sokoto Caliphate; Umar Tal.

Stephen Cor)'

Further reading: J. F. Ade Ajayi, Michael Crowder,
ed., History of West Africa. 2 vols. (London: Longman,
1987); Louis Brenner, Muslim Identity and Social Change
in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1993); Peter B. Clark, West Africa and Islam (Lon-
don: Arnold, 1982); Mcrvyn Hiskctt, The Development
of Islam in West Africa (London: Longman, 1984).

West Bank See Palestine.

Westernization

The process of Westernization is generally,
although not exclusively, associated with changes
as postcolonial and developing nations move from
more traditional political, social, and economic
systems of organization to models mirroring
Western, primarily western European and North
American, societies and the institutions that devel-
oped there in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
These changes include industrialization, the move
toward capitalism, the development of parliamen-
tarianism, the growth of state bureaucracies, and a
new, increasingly private role for religion.

Beginning in the late 19th century, Muslim
societies experienced heightened interaction with

Western powers and ideas, most notably through
the latter's colonial activities in the Middle East
and North Africa, as well as in South and South-
east Asia. Among other effects of this contact
was the initiation of reform efforts in Muslim
societies, most notably the Ottoman Empire.
Intellectually and politically, Ottoman officials,
regional governors, and intellectuals worked to
reconcile modern Western ideas of EDUCATION,
economics, law, the family, and SCIENCE with an
Islamic framework. Many of the same issues with
which these figures grappled in the 19th century
continue to inform debate today.

Many disputes surrounding the idea and phe-
nomenon of Westernization focus on the origins
of its constitutive elements and the degree to
which they are transferable to non-Western soci-
eties. Some of the most widely felt and passionate
debates about the meaning of Westernization and
its effects have taken place in societies with major-
ity Muslim populations. In many cases, these
debates center on whether or not modernization
can be distinguished from Westernization, that
is, whether it is possible to integrate modern sci-
entific, religious, political, social, and economic
ideas while at the same time protecting aspects of
local identities and institutions.

In both Iran and Egypt, for example, serious
attempts have been made to distinguish tech-
nological, military, economic, religious, social,
and political changes from outright adherence
to Western ideas and norms. The association of
many of these ideas and institutions with colo-
nialism and imperialism has inspired strenuous
efforts to distinguish modernization from West-
ernization, with the latter most often tied to the
onset of social and moral decay. Modernization,
on the other hand, refers to the use of modern
science and technologies and is generally accepted
by Islamists and other critics of Westernization.
In fact, many urban Islamists have a background
in the modern natural sciences, reflecting a per-
ceived distinction between the cultural effects of
Westernization, generally seen as destructive, and

712 women

wives and daughters and the female saints of
the Islamic traditions, women have played an
important theological role in Islam. Women of
the ahl al-bayt ("People of the House*' of the
Prophet) are sources for sectarian theology in
Islam. Although Muhammad had no living sons,
his daughter Fatima (d. 632 c.e.), married to his
cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), became the
mother of his grandsons, Hasan and Husayn.
The claim to prophetic charisma by the Shiat Ali
("Party of Ali") through these grandsons, makes
Fatima, called al-Zahra (the "luminous"), and the
wives/daughters of the early Shii Imams of central
importance to Shii martyrology (based on the
drama annually commemorated among the Shia
of Imam Husayn's martyrdom at Karbala in 680
C.E.). The other most significant figure in Islamic
theology is Mary, the blessed virgin of Islam. She
is the only woman to have a chapter of the Quran
named after her (Surat Maryam, Q 19:16-40) and
to have important narratives of the quranic text
devoted to her role as the mother of Jesus, the
last great prophet in Islam before Muhammad (Q
33:33-47).

Muslim womens traditional importance in
Islamic society has always been and continues
to be the ground and foundation of the Islamic
family. Social values strongly reinforce orientation
toward marriage and children as the normative
pattern based on Muhammad's own example.
Childrearing and early education and socialization
of children arc among womens most important
tasks in Islamic societies worldwide. Although
traditionally excluded from public male dominant
institutions of Islamic learning, Muslim women
have always been privately involved in study and
oral transmission of Islamic source texts (Quran
and hadith, narratives about the prophets, etc).
In modern times, they have entered into both
secular and religious forms of education with
enthusiasm supporting their long-standing role
as family educators and moral exemplars, and as
training for professional careers in the workplace
outside the home.

Women have also been ritually active in per-
forming the Five Pillars of Islamic practice (wit-
ness to faith, five daily prayers, fasting during
Ramadan, almsgiving, and pilgrimage to Mecca)
and they have been centrally involved in the social
and familial aspects of commemorating the two
most important festival occasions in the Islamic
lunar calendar (the Feast of Sacrifice [Id AL-Adha]
at the closure of HAJJ, and the Feast of Breaking
the Fast (Id al-Fitr] at the end of the month of
Ramadan. Although discussion of women’s ritual
lives is brief before modern times, the study of
the medieval textual record as well as the growing
anthropological and sociological record beginning
in the 19th century bear witness to the complexity
and fervor of women's devotions whether in the
context of formal institutional practice (the Pil-
lars) or in the wide diversity of “popular" or folk
practices throughout Muslim lands (folk heal-
ing, shrine pilgrimages, etc.). Even those areas
that, because of womens unique biology, dictate
adaptations or restrictions in ritual practice (such
as the requirement to suspend fasting while men-
struating and continue it later in the year) are
understood by many women as a special challenge
and spiritual opportunity, part of their “greater
jihad," or struggle for the faith.

The most important issues that Muslim women
have addressed throughout the 20th century and
into the 21st are diverse struggles to maintain
Islamic identity while adapting to modernity.
Muslim women have struggled to advance wom-
en's social, educational, and professional status in
Islamic countries throughout the world, and they
have struggled to maintain and affirm their Islamic
identity in the face of growing secularization and
Westernization. One of their responses to this
struggle has been the re-veiling movement. Veiling
has become, perhaps more than any other single
issue, the defining “women's question" in the last
40 years. Although unveiling and the adoption of
various forms of Western dress among the edu-
cated middle and upper classes since the 1930s
became a visible benchmark of modernity (along

women 713

with womens education, right to vote, entering
the workplace, etc.), the re-veiling movement,
which began in the 1970s, has become a world-
wide phenomenon expressing a new response to
modernity. It also expresses a transnational form
of Islamic feminism that has been marked by the
entry of women into all public spheres of Islamic
life, including formal religious learning (Quran
interpretation) and ritual leadership of the com-
munity (as women imams, or leaders of mixed
male-female prayer in the mosque). The symbol
that had in the past meant public invisibility has
become a politicized expression of Islamic iden-
tity, which ensures perfect public respectability
and supports the entry of Muslim women fully
into contemporary public life.

See also adultery; birth rites: circumcision;
Companions of the Prophet; divorce; houses;
Mernissi, Fatima; Rabia al-Adawiyya; Shaarawi,
Hu da Al-; ziyara .

Kathleen M. O'Connor

Further reading: Khalcd Abou El-Fadl, Speaking in
God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women (Oxford,
U.K.: Oncworld Publications, 2001); Lila Abu-Lughod,
Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society
(Berkeley: University of California Press. 1986); Kamran
Scott Aghaie, The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance
and Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shi'i Islam (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2005); Leila Ahmed. Women
and Gender in Islam, Historical Roots of a Modern Debate
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992); Laleh
Bakhtiar, Shariati on Shariati and the Muslim Woman: Who
Was A/i Shariati ? For Muslim Women: The Islamic Mod-
est Dress, Expectations from the Muslim Woman, Fatima
Is Fatima and Guide to Shariati's Collected Works (Chi-
cago: KAZ1 Publications, 1996); Asma Barlas, “ Believing
Women" in Islam, Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations
of the Qur'an (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002);
Marjo Buitelaar, Fasting and Feasting in Morocco: Womens
Participation in Ramadan (Oxford, U.K/Providence: Berg,
1993); Miriam Cooke, Women Claim Islam: Creating
Islamic Feminisms through Literature (New York: Rout-
ledge, 2001); Lara Deeb, An Enchanted Modem: Gender

and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press. 2006); Eleanor A. Doumato, Getting
God's Ear: Women, Islam, and Healing in Saudi Arabia and
the Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000);
John L. Esposito with Natana J. DeLong-Bas, Women
in Muslim Family Law, 2d ed. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse
University Press. 2001); Joyce B. Flueckiger, In Amnia's
Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South Asia
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); Gavin
R. G. Hambly, ed.. Women in the Medieval Islamic World:
Power, Patronage, and Piety (New York: St. Martin's Press,
1998); Camille A. Helminski, ed., Women of Sufism: A
Hidden Treasure, Writings and Stories of Mystic Poets,
Scholars and Saints (Boston: Shambhala, 2003); Muham-
mad H. Kabbani and Laleh Bakhtiar, cds.. Encyclopedia of
Muhammad's Women Companions and the Traditions They
Related (Chicago: KAZ1 Publications, 1998); Beverly B.
Mack and Jean Boyd, One Woman ‘s Jihad: Nana Asma'u,
Scholar and Scribe (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2000); Fcdwa Malti-Douglas, Medicines of the Soul:
Female Bodies and Sacred Geographies in a Transnational
Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, and
online); Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook
on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1992); Mohammad Akram
Nadwi, al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars of Islam
(Oxford. U.K.: Interface Publications, 2007); Catharina
Raudvcre, The Book and the Roses: Sufi Women, Visibility,
and Zikir in Contemporary Istanbul (London: LB. Tau-
ris, 2003); Denise A. Spcllbcrg, Politics, Gender, and the
Islamic Past: The Legacy of ‘ A’isha bint Abi Bakr (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Barbara E Sto-
wasscr. Women in the Qur’an, Traditions, and Interpretation
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, and online);
Pieternella van Doorn-Harder, Women Shaping Islam:
Reading the Qur'an in Indonesia (Champaign: University
of Illinois Press. 2006); Aminah Wadud, Inside the Gender
Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam (Oxford, U.K.: Oneworld
Publications. 2006); Mai Yamani, ed., Feminism and
Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives (New York: New
York University Press, 1996); Sherifa Zuhur, Revealing
Reveiling: Islamist Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egy'pt
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992).

Yahya Sec John the Baptist.

Yathrib Sec Medina.

Yemen

Since the pre-Islamic era, Yemen ( al-Yaman ) has
been defined as the southwestern part of the Arabian
Peninsula; it has acquired a progressively narrower
geographical definition in modern times. Since
1992 historical boundaries have come substantially
within the Republic of Yemen, which resulted from
the unification of the Peoples Democratic Republic
of South Yemen and the Yemen Arab Republic.
Yemen borders the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and
Red Sea, between Oman and Saudi Arabia, thus
occupying a strategic location on one of the world's
most active shipping lanes. It is one of the poorest
countries in the Arab world, with its economic for-
tunes mostly dependent upon oil reserves. Yemen
has a total area of 527,970 square kilometers, nearly
twice the size of the state of Nevada, and although
mostly desert, possesses a varied terrain and cli-
mate, which supports agriculture in the temperate
mountainous region. These conditions have proven
ideal for the cultivation of coffee, fruits, nuts, and
the mildly narcotic qat plant.

Unlike other inhabitants of the Arabian Penin-
sula who have historically been nomadic or semi-
nomadic, Yemenis have led a mostly sedentary
existence in small villages and towns scattered
throughout the highlands and coastal regions.
Yemen's population of 23 million (2008) is pre-
dominantly Arab, with some Afro-Arab and South
Asian ethnic minorities. The national language is
Arabic, spoken in several regional dialects, and
Yemen is considered to be a homeland of the
South-Semitic branch of languages. Accounting
for approximately half the total population, the
north and northwest are chiefly Zaydi Shia by reli-
gious persuasion, with small minorities adhering
to Ismaili Shiism and Judaism; however, Sunnism
of the Shafii Legal School has been making its
mark on the capital city of Sanaa since the 1970s.
The Shafii school is predominant in the south and
southeast, with a renowned center of scholarship
in the city of Tarim; Sufism has also been simulta-
neously prevalent in this region. In recent history,
Islamic renewal and reform movements have
exercised a considerable influence upon religious
attitudes throughout the country, especially under
the auspices of the Islah political party.

Traditionally, Yemeni towns were contained
within the territory of an individual tribe ( qabila ),
with the exception of Sanaa, the population of

715

716 Yemen

which distinguished itself by the greater signifi-
cance it attached to adherence of the SHARIA. Tribal
divisions and subdivisions are headed by a shaykh,
who, as arbiter of customary law and intertribal
relations, continues to be recognized as an official
mediator by the Republic of Yemen. Especially
in the north and northwest, this social structure
overlaps with a system of social ranks, composed
of status groups graded according to ancestry
and professional activity. Until the emergence of
the modern state, the descendants of the Prophet
(sayyid) including the Zaydi imam, took their place
at the top of the hierarchical order. This social
order has been weakened by such factors as the
founding of a republican regime, increased social
mobility, and urbanization.

Yemen is one of the oldest centers of civiliza-
tion in the Middle East. Between the ninth cen-
tury B.C.E. and the sixth century C.E., it formed
part of the kingdoms of Minaca, Saba, Himyar,
Qataban, Hadramawt, and Awsan, which con-
trolled the lucrative spice trade. It was known to
Romans as Arabia Felix because of the riches its
trade generated; Caesar Augustus attempted to
annex it in 24 B.C.E. , but the expedition failed.
Persian and Abyssinian kings were more success-
ful and Yemen was incorporated into the Sassanid
and Abyssinian empires in the sixth and early
seventh centuries c.E. The attempt of Abraha, the
Abyssinian governor of Yemen, to conquer Mecca
in the renowned “year of the Elephant" (570), was
memorialized in the Quran. Muslim historians
have traditionally asserted that, in 628, Badhan,
the Sassanid governor of Sanaa, embraced Islam
and the whole country immediately followed suit.
However, modern historians argue that Islam-
ization proceeded over at least three centuries,
beginning when caliphs exerted their control
over Yemen through official representatives, such
as governors and judges. During the era of the
Rightly Guided Caliphs, Yemen provided the vast
majority of manpower for the Islamic conquests.
With the breakup of the Abbasid Caliphate after
the 10th century, Yemen came under the control

of the imams of various Zaydi dynasties, who
established a theocratic political structure that
survived until modern times.

Zaydi dominance was interrupted during the
11th and 12th centuries by the Sunni Ayyubid
and Rasulid dynasties of EGYPT, who controlled
much of southern Yemen. By the end of the 16th
century and again in the 19th century, Yemen
fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire,
while facing intermittent resistance from Zaydi
forces. Northern Yemen became independent of
the Ottoman Empire in 1918, and the Yemen
Arab Republic was formed in 1962. Notable lit-
erary and political figure Muhammad Mahmud
al-Zubayri (d. 1965) championed the cause
of Yemeni independence, and he continues to
be regarded as a national hero. The British,
who had occupied the southern port city of
Aden since 1839, withdrew in 1967 from what
became the People's Democratic Republic of
South Yemen, which officially subscribed to
communism in 1970. The two countries were
formally united as the Republic of Yemen on
May 22, 1990. A southern-based and Saudi-
supported secessionist movement was quickly
subdued in 1994 by forces loyal to President Ali
Abdullah Salih (b. 1942). The bombing of the
USS Cole in 2000 and the 2002 attack on the
French oil tanker Limburg have drawn attention
to the activities of alleged al-Qaida associates
in Yemen, and recent Zaydi rebel attacks have
occurred in the northwest.

See also Arabic language and literature;
imam; Shafii Legal School; Zaydi Shiism.

Gregory Mack

Further reading: Robert D. Burrowes, Historical Dic-
tionary of Yemen (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1995);
Werner Da uni. cd., Yemen: 3000 Years of Art and
Civilization (Innsbruck and Frankfurt am Main: Pin-
guin-Verlag. 1988); Paul Dresch, A History of Modern
Yemen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000);
Brinkley M. Messick, The Calligraphic State (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993).

Yusuf 717

Yunus Emre (late 13th to early 14th
centuries) Turkish mystical poet
Yunus Emre is perhaps the most well-known
Turkish poet, not only because he was the first
major representative of Anatolian Turkish poetry,
but also because of the sheer beauty and sincerity
of his poems, and the continuing relevance they
have today.

Little historical information exists on the life
of Yunus Emre, though a note on a manuscript
collection of his poetry suggests that he died in
1320 or 1321. This places him during the turbu-
lent period after Mongol invasions had weakened
the Seljuk Empire and Turkish principalities were
vying for control over various parts of Anato-
lia. Several places in Turkey claim to have been
the birthplace of Yunus, and even more claim
to bear his grave; it is likely that this is due to
his immense popularity and to the existence of
other poets going by the name Yunus and writing
in his style, which also complicates attributing
specific poems to him. Bektashis consider him to
have been a Bektashi, but he is also respected by
most other dervish orders in Turkey. His poetry
includes references to Tapduk Emre as his spiri-
tual master.

Yunus Emre's poems have been collected in a
Divan , though the various manuscripts show dis-
crepancies in their content. He is also the author
of a poetic work entitled Risalat al-nushiyya,
which is dated to 1307-08. The language of his
poems is generally simple and close to that of the
common people. Motifs arc drawn from nature
and from classical Sufi poetry, and themes include
the poets relationship with God (the Friend), the
transitoriness of life, and especially mystical love.
Most of his poems, because of their form and
mystical content, are considered ilahis (mystical
hymns), and many have been sung in the ceremo-

nies of dervish orders. A well-known example of
Yunus's poetry is translated here in part by Talat
Halman:

I am not at this place to dwell,

I arrived here just to depart.

I'm a well-stocked peddler, I sell
To all those who'll buy from my mart.

I am not here on earth for strife ,

Love is the mission of my life.

Hearts are the home of the loved one;

I came here to build each true heart.

My madness is love for the Friend,

Lovers know what my hopes portend;

For me duality must end:

God and I must not live apart.

As the first major Turkish poet, Yunus Emre
influenced later poets writing in that language, and
he laid the foundation for the development of Turk-
ish mystical poetry. He continues to inspire modern
Turkish poets today, and his hymns continue to be
read and recited and to be sung in the ceremonies
of almost all dervish orders in Turkey. Yunus has
served as the subject of films, plays, and an orato-
rio, and he is commemorated annually in festivals.

See also Bektashi Sufi Order; music; Seljuk
dynasty; Turkish language and literature.

Mark Soileau

Further reading: Talat Halman, cd., Yunus Emre and
His Mystical Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University
Turkish Studies, 1981); Grace Martin Smith, The Poetry
of Yunus Emre, a Turkish Sufi Poet (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, University of California Press, 1993).

Yusuf See Joseph.

7

zahir Sec batin; tafsir.
zakat See ALMSGIVING.

Zamzam

A feature of many sacred places and pilgrimage
centers is the water source. Practically, it provides
water for the people and animals who reside in
or frequent the site. However, the water from
this source is also used in ritual activity, such as
performing ablutions and other purification rites.
Often, its significance is woven into the mythol-
ogy and sacred history of the site. For Muslims
the most sacred water source is the well known
as Zamzam. It is situated within the courtyard
of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, near the corner
of the Kaaba, which contains the Black Stone.
Pilgrims performing the HAJJ and UMRA (the lesser
pilgrimage) customarily drink water from the
well, although this is not a required part of pil-
grimage rituals. Those who do that believe the
water is full of blessings (baraka) and has healing
power. Many take vials of Zamzam water home
with them, or they soak cloth in it that will be
used as burial shrouds. It is also mixed with

rosewater and used in the ritual cleansing of the
Kaaba twice each year, during Ramadan and dur-
ing the hajj season.

The source of the water for Zamzam is subter-
ranean runoff from the sporadic rains that come
between October and March. Since Mecca is
located at the low point of a narrow valley, water
collects in the aquifer about 90 feet below the
surface that feeds the well through springs. With-
out this vital source, and other wells in the area,
the town would not have flourished through the
centuries as it has. Zamzams importance, how-
ever, is also recognized and magnified in Islamic
traditional literature. Although never mentioned
in the Quran, other early Islamic lore, such as
Ibn Ishaq's Sira , an early biography of Muhammad
(written in the eighth century), explains that the
well originated in the days of Abraham, when he
left Hagar and Ishmael, his wife and son, there.
(He would later return to join his son in build-
ing the Kaaba.) Ishmael, perhaps an infant at the
time, thirsted for water. Hagar left him and went
to search of it, praying and running in despera-
tion — an event commemorated whenever pilgrims
"run" between the hills of Safa and Marwa next to
the Sacred Mosque during the hajj and umra. At
last Hagar's prayers were answered and the water

718

Zaydi Shiism 719

came forth from the earth beneath her son. Some
accounts say that it was the angel Gabriel who
actually opened the well head. In time, the well
fell into disuse and was forgotten. According to
Muslim accounts, Zamzam was rediscovered by
Muhammad's grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, who
found precious golden objects and weapons in it.
These were removed and the well was reopened
for use by pilgrims. Providing water and food
to pilgrims, a prestigious service, remained the
monopoly of Muhammad's family for generations
thereafter. In later centuries it became a lucrative
business for the Zamzam i s, a class of water carri-
ers who served the needs of pilgrims.

Today Zamzam is no longer a well in the tra-
ditional meaning of the word. The government
of Saudi Arabia has been engaged in significant
renovation and expansion projects through-
out the Haram area, including Zamzam. It has
installed pumps, filtering systems, and public
taps to make sure that Zamzam water is potable
and that it is readily available to the millions of
pilgrims who come to Mecca each year. Zamzam
water is bottled and distributed to pilgrims,
and there are even free Zamzam water dispens-
ers and public faucets at convenient locations
in and around the Sacred Mosque. To monitor
these efforts and help conserve the water sup-
ply, a Zamzam Studies and Research Center was
recently created under royal decree within the
Saudi Geological Survey.

Zamzam has also taken on modern commer-
cial and political significance. In 2002 an Iranian
soft drink company began to market a beverage
called Zamzam Cola. It became a popular drink
that year, especially among pilgrims in Mecca,
as an alternative to Pepsi and Coca-Cola. At the
time, many Muslims boycotted these drinks to
protest Israeli attacks against Palestinians and
the anticipated U.S. and British invasion of Iraq,
which occurred in March 2003. In Saudi Arabia,
the government consulted with religious authori-
ties and decided to ban the import of the drink
because it felt that the commercial use of the

name zamzam was improper. The Iranian com-
pany continues to produce the beverage, how-
ever, and has distributed it as far away as Great
Britain.

Further reading: G. R. Hawting, "The Disappearance
and Rediscovery of Zamzam and the Well of Mecca."
Bulletin of the Society of Oriental and African Studies
43 (1980): 44-54; Muhammad ibn Ishaq, The Life of
Muhammad: A Translation oj Ibn Ishaqs Sirat Rasul Allah.
Translated by Alfred Guillaume (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1955); F E. Peters, The Hajj: The Muslim
Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places (Princeton. N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1994).

Zaydi Shiism

Also known as Fiver Shiism, the Zaydi tradition
of Shiism is today found mainly in Yemen, where
Zaydis are estimated to be about 36 percent of
the population (Yemen’s total population was
estimated at 23 million in 2008). In keeping with
other branches of Shiism, it traces its heritage to
the AHL AL-BAYT — the household of the prophet
Muhammad (ca. 570-632). Its name is derived
from that of Zayd ibn Ali (d. 740), the son of
Ali Zayn al-Abidin (d. 714) and grandson of
UUSAYN IBN Ali, who was killed at Karbala in 680.
According to Zaydi doctrine he is the fifth Imam,
instead of Muhammad al-Baqir (d. 731), who is
considered to be the fifth in Twelve-Imam Shiism.
Known for his religious knowledge, Zayd became
embroiled in anti-Umayyad politics, and he was
considered by his followers to be a Shii Imam
because of his descent and because he led a revolt
against the Umayyads. He received only nominal
support from other Shii factions in Arabia and
Iraq, partly because he refused to condemn Abu
Bakr (r. 632-634) and Umar ibn al-Khattab (r.
634-644), the first two caliphs. Zayd was killed
by Umayyad troops in a skirmish in Kufa in 740.
The Syrians dismembered his body — the head
was presented to the caliph in Damascus and the
body was crucified, then later burned and the

Zaytuna Mosque 721

Shii Muslims as the first Imam. Sayyida Zaynabs
brothers Hasan and Husayn met violent deaths
like their father and are recognized as the second
and third Imams, respectively. At an unknown age
she married Abd Allah ibn Jaafar, with whom she
had five children.

The most significant event in Sayyida Zaynabs
life was certainly her presence in 680 at the Battle
of Karbala, in present day Iraq, where a much
larger Umayyad army overwhelmed Husayn's
forces. As the sole surviving adult, Sayyida Zaynab
was transported, along with the head of Husayn,
first to Kufa and then to Damascus, where the
caliph Yazid I (r. 680-683) made them examples
of the fate of rebels. Sayyida Zaynab is remem-
bered for having publicly and eloquently defended
the honor of Husayn, his companions, and AH L
AL-BAYT (Muhammad's family) generally, in front
of her captors. Sources say that upon returning
to Medina, she educated the nascent Shii com-
munity about what happened at Karbala and
led them until the fourth Imam, Ali ibn Husayn
Zayn al-Abidin (638-713), matured. She also is
remembered for having initiated many of the ritu-
als that are now part of the annual commemora-
tion of Husayn's martyrdom known as Ashura,
which occurs in Muharram, the first month of the
Islamic calendar.

There is some dispute about Sayyida Zaynab's
final resting place. Both Cairo and Damascus
are home to large shrines in her name that host
pilgrims and tourists from all over the Muslim
world. Pilgrims often appeal to Sayyida Zaynab
to intercede with God on their behalf. They hope
that as a woman who suffered much in her life
she will understand their suffering and help them
with issues ranging from business matters to ill-
nesses to efforts to become pregnant.

Each year Sayyida Zaynab's MAWLID festival in
Cairo draws tens of thousands of Sunni and Shii
Muslims. This stands in contrast to her Damascus
shrine, which is more dominantly Shii and shows
significant Iranian influence both architecturally
and in the population it attracts. Since the late

1970s, Sayyida Zaynab has become an important
figure for political activists, especially in Iran and
Lebanon. The patience, piety, and forthrightness
in the face of oppression that she exhibited during
her life are seen by many as ideal characteristics
for a modern Shii woman seeking to live a truly
Islamic life.

See also Husayn ibn Ali; intercession; saint;
women; ziyara.

Michelle Zimney

Further reading: Kamran Scot Aghaie, ed., The Women
of Karbala: Ritual Performance and Symbolic Discourses
in Modern Shii Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press,
2005); Lara Dceb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and
Public Piety in Lebanon, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2006).

Zaytuna Mosque

The oldest and largest mosque in Tunis, Tuni-
sia, the Zaytuna was completed by the Aghlabid
amir Ibrahim bin Ahmad in the 860s, building
upon the site of an earlier Umayyad mosque
constructed in 732. Building materials, including
some 200 marbled columns, were taken from the
nearby ruins of Carthage. Over the centuries, the
mosque was expanded by the Zirids, who built
the galleries, the crypt, and the dome in the 10th
century; the Hafsids, who constructed the library
in the 15th century; and the Ottomans, who built
the current minaret in the 19th century.

The Zaytuna mosque served as the central
structure in the old medina of Tunis, around
which SUQS and guild-shops were constructed.
The mosque included a UNIVERSITY, which pro-
vided an advanced education in the religious
sciences and related subjects by some of the lead-
ing local ulama. Many well-known scholars and
administrators of the premodern era studied at
the Zaytuna, which became a focal point of debate
between Westernizing reformers and traditional
ulama in the 19th century. With the establishment
of the French protectorate in 1881, the Zaytuna

ziyara 723

Pilgrims visit the tomb of the wife of the Chishti saint Bakhtiar Kaki in Mehrauli, New Delhi, India. (Juan E. Campo)

my intercession." The high esteem in which this
pilgrimage is held is also reflected in the murals
painted on the houses of Egyptian pilgrims, which
often display images of Muhammad's mosque in
Medina next to images of the Kaaba in Mecca.
Another major pilgrimage shrine connected with
Muhammad is the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem,
where he is believed to have traveled during his
Night Journey and Ascent.

There are literally hundreds of other pilgrim-
age shrine sites connected with prophets and
saints (known as walis). Some of these have
ancient pre-Islamic origins, but most began to
noticeably appear in Muslim communities only
between the 13th and 13th centuries, with some
developing as recently as the late 20th century.
Many of the most prominent are identified with

descendants of Muhammad's family, the AHL al-
bayt. These include the tombs of Husayn ibn Ali,
Zaynab, and Nafisa in Cairo. The most important
shrines visited by the Shia arc those of the Imams
and their descendants, especially Ali ibn Abi Talib
in Najaf (Iraq), Husayn in Karbala, the Kazimayn
(the seventh and ninth Imams Musa al-Kazim
and Muhammad al-Taqi) in a north Baghdad
suburb, Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari (the
10th and 11th Imams) in Samarra (Iraq), al-Rida
(or Reza, the eighth Imam) in Mashhad (Iran),
and his sister Fatima in Qumm. In recent years
the shrine of Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi Talib, in
Damascus has attracted large numbers of Shii pil-
grims. Major pilgrimage shrines connected with
Sufi saints include those of Mum al-Din Chishti
in Ajmer (India), Baba Farid al-Din Ganjshakar

724 zuhd

in Pakpattan (Pakistan), Hajji Bektash and Jalal
al-Din Rumi in Turkey, Ahmad al-Badawi in Tanta
(Egypt), and Moulay Idris in Morocco. The shrine
of Sunan Giri, also known Raden Paku, a legend-
ary warrior saint who is known for having won
many converts, is one of the major pilgrimage
sites in Indonesia.

Although ztyara has become a widely accepted
practice among the Shia, its acceptability as a reli-
gious practice has been debated by Sunni Muslims
for centuries. Many of the ulama and Sufis have
approved it, or at least said it was permissible.
Those who favored a strict interpretation of the
Quran and the sunna believed that it was a form
of bidaa (innovation) and should be avoided or
forbidden. Critics also say that it is a form of
idolatry (shirk). Among the foremost proponents
of this opinion in the medieval era was Taqi al-Din
ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). His views were revived in
the puritanical reformism of Muhammad ibn Abd
al-Wahhab (d. 1792) and the Wahhabi brand of
Islam that swept through the Arabian Peninsula in
the 18th century and then was established as the
reigning Islamic ideology of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia in the 20th. Wahhabi warriors led a raid in
1801 on Karbala in southern Iraq, killing several
thousand and desecrating the shrine of Husayn. In
1804 they plundered the mosque of Muhammad
in Medina and prevented pilgrims from visiting it.
When they retook Medina in 1925 they destroyed

hundreds of shrines belonging to members of
Muhammad's family, his Companions, and promi-
nent scholars. Today the only pilgrims allowed
into the country are those who are going for hajj or
umra. Outside of Saudi Arabia, shrine visitation is
opposed by Muslims who have been influenced by
Wahhabi teachings, by reform-minded Muslims,
and by some secularized Muslims who see such
practices as antiquated. Nevertheless, for many
Muslims, visiting the shrines of the holy dead
remains an important part of their religious life.
See also dhikr; intercession; miracle; saint;

WALL

Further reading: Anne H. Bctteridge, "Muslim Women
and Shrines in Shiraz." In Everyday Life in the Mus-
lim Middle East. 2d cd., edited by Donna Lee Bowen
and Evelyn A. Early, 276-289 (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2002); P. M. Currie, The Shrine and
Cult of Muin al-Din Chishti of Ajmer (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007); Muhammad Umar Memon,
Ibn Taymiyas Struggle against Popular Religion (The
Hague: Mouton, 1976); Yitzhak Nakash, The Shiis of
Iraq (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994),
163-184; Christopher S. Taylor, In the Vicinity of the
Righteous: Ziyara and the Veneration of Muslim Saints in
Late Medieval Egypt (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999).

zuhd See asceticism.

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tion and Politics. 4th edition. Boulder, Colo.: West-
view Press. 2007.

Mitchell. Richard. The Society of the Muslim Brothers.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Mottahcdeh, Roy P. The Mantle of the Prophet: Reli-
gion and Politics in Iran. Oxford: Oneworld,
2000 .

Naqash, Yitzhak. The Shiis of Iraq. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1994.

Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. Mawdudi and the Making
of Islamic Revivalism. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996.

. The Shia Revival: How Convicts within Islam

Will Shape the Future. London: W.W. Norton, 2007.

Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: The Transforma-
tion of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1984.

Rahnema. Ali, cd. Pioneers of Islamic Revival. 2d edition.
London: Zed Books, 2005.

Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Funda-
mentalism in Central Asia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2001.

Ruthven, Malisc. Islam in the World. 3d edition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006.

Said, Edward W. Covering Islam: How the Media and the
Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World.
New York: Random House, 1997.

Smith, Jane I. Islam in America. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1999.

Webb, Gisela, ed. Windows of Faith: Muslim Women
Scholar-Activists in North America. Syracuse, N.Y.:
Syracuse University Press. 2000.

Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. The Ulama in Contempo-
rary lsla?n: Custodians of Change. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press.

VI. Islam and Other Religions

Assayag. Jackie. At the Confluence of Two Rivers: Muslims
and Hindus in South India. New Delhi: Manohar,
2004.

Bibliography 729

Bullict, Richard W. The Case for Islamo-Christian
Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press,
2006.

Cohen, Mark R. Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in
the Middle Ages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2008.

Cragg, Kenneth. Jesus and the Muslim: An Exploration.
London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985.

Eaton, Richard M., ed. India's Islamic Traditions , 711-
1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Gilmartin, David, and Bruce B. Lawrence. Beyond Turk
and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Isl-
amicate South Asia. Gainesville: University Press of
Florida, 2000.

Goitein, Shlomo D. Jews and Arabs: A Concise History
of Their Social and Cultural Relations. New York:
Dover Publications, 2005.

Graham, William A. Beyond the Written Word: Oral
Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religions. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Hussain, Amir. Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God.
Kelowna, Canada: Copper House, 2006.

Levtzion, Nehemiah, ed. Conversion to Islam. New York:
Holmes and Meier, 1979.

Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press. 1987.

McAuliffe, Jane Dammcn. Quranic Christians: An Analy-
sis of Classical and Modern Exegesis. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Ornament of the World: How
Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of
Tolerance in Medieval Spain. Boston: Little, Brown,
2002.

Peters, Francis E. Islam: A Guide for Jews and Chris-
tians. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
2005.

VII. Islam and the Arts

Blair. Sheila S., and Jonathan M. Bloom. The Art
and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800. New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995.

. Islamic Arts. London: Phaidon Press. 1997.

Ettinghausen, Richard, and Oleg Grabar. The Art and
Architecture of Islam, 650-1250. New York: Viking
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Grabar, Oleg. The Formation of Islamic Art. New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973.

Nelson, Kristina. The Art of Reciting the Quran. Cairo:
American University in Cairo Press, 2001.
Schimmcl. Anncmarie. Calligraphy and Islamic Culture.
New York: New York University Press, 1990.

VIII. Internet Resources

There are many sites on the Web that focus on
Islam, but they arc of varying quality, and, like
other Web sites, they arc prone to disappear or
change their URLs. Some are scholarly, many arc
devotional or seek to explain the religion from the
point of view of Muslim believers. The following
is a list of useful, well-organized sites that have
been maintained and updated for several years.

Encyclopaedia of Islam, online edition. This site includes
the entire second edition of this major reference
work, with revisions, plus installments for the new
third edition. Access by subscription.

URL: www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/uid=3144/
advanced_scarch?authstaluscode=202
Encyclopaedia of the Quran, online edition. This includes
the entire reference work, with updates and revi-
sions. Access by subscription.

URL: www.brillonline.nl/subscribcr/uids3144/
advanced_search?authstatuscode=202
Encyclopaedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, online edi-
tion. The entire reference work, with updates and
revisions. Access by subscription.

URL: www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/uids3144/
advanced_scarch?aulhstatuscodes202
Index Islamicus. Online version of scholarly literature
in the fields of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies,
as well as the wider Muslim world. Searchable data
base. Access by subscription.

U RL: www-md3.csa.com/ids7 0/advanced_search .
php?SlD=aa7153a015406126f28dac82b93940a2

730 Encyclopedia of Islam

Islaniicity. A very large Muslim site, loaded with text,
audio, and video files. Includes sections on the
Quran, hadith, history, and links to Muslim organi-
zations and countries.

URL: www.islamicity.com/default.shtml
Islam Online. Another exhaustive Muslim site,
loaded with text, as well as audio and video files.
URL: http://www.islamonline.net/English/index.shtml
Islamic Studies , Islam , Arabic and Religion: An award-
winning site covering many facets of Islam and
Muslim life, created by Prof. A. Godlas, an Islamic
Studies scholar. Includes links for the Quran,
hadith, law, Shiism, and Sufism.

URL: www.archcs.uga.edu/-godlas/

The Muslim Women’s Home Page: Very useful collection
of information about Islamic understandings of
women as expressed by Muslims themselves.

URL: www.jannah.org/sisters/index.html
Saudi Aram co World. Online version of the bimonthly
publication on Islamic and Arab culture, history,
and geography. Back issues go all the way to 1960.
Very' informative articles for general readers and
students.

URL: www.saudiaramcoworld.com/about.us/

The Shia Home Page. Web site created by Shii Muslims,
the minority branch of Islam, to explain their doc-
trines and practices.

URL: www.shia.org/

INDEX

NOTE: Boldface page numbers
indicate extensive treatment
of a topic. Page numbers in
italic indicate illustrations.
Locators followed by c indicate
chronology.

A

Abbasid Caliphate xxxi,
xxxviiic, 1-2
Baghdad 84
Brethren of Purity 115
Cairo 12Q
caliphate 126
daawa 177
Damascus 181
dar al-lslam and dar al-
harb 182

Delhi Sultanate 189
Fatimid dynasty 231
fiqh 238
fit mi 241,242
Ghazali, Abu Hamid
al- 261
had it h 279

Hanafi Legal School 287
Hanbali Legal School 288
harem 292
Harun al-Rashid 293
Hashimile dynasty 294
Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-
Hasan Ah 328
Ibn Hanbal. Ahmad
330-331

Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad 333
Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din 334
Ibn Muqla. Abu Ah
Muhammad 336
Iraq 369

lsmaili Shiism 377, 378

Israel 381
mamlak 45 b
mathematics 461
music 504
paradise 547
Persian language and
literature 550
philosophy 554
Quran 573
Quraysh 575
renewal and reform
movements 586
Saudi Arabia 607
Shafii. Muhammad ibn Idris
al- 616
Shiism 626
soul and spirit 631
sultan 643, 644
tafsir 653
theology 668
Umayyad Caliphate 687
vizier 7Q3
Yemen 716

Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud xlivc,

2-3.3

communism 161
Daoud Ahmed 181-182
Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al
Saud 233
Gulf States 272
Hijra 299
OIC 533
Salafism 602
Saudi Arabia 607
Wahhabism 705, 706
World Muslim Congress
714

Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi xlic,

xlivc, 3-4. 32. 563-564. 640

Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani 4. 83.

288. 289

Abd al- Rahman. Umar 4—5, 16
Abd al-Raziq, Ah 5
Abduh, Muhammad xlvc, 5-6
Afghani. Jamal al-Din
al- 14

Banna, Hasan al- 89
creation 173
education 209
ijtihad 347
philosophy 555
Rashid Rida. Muhammad
581-582

renewal and reform
movements 587
Salafism 601
Sufism 640
tafsir 6 55
funJiid 665-666
theology 669
umma 689

ablution 6-7, 106. 110. 131.

484, 557
abortion 7. 105
Abou El Fadl. Khaled 8. 1 01.

19Z.315

Abraham xxiv, 8-9
Arafat 57
biv aka 92
blood 109

Christianity and Islam
141

circumcision .149
comic strips and comic
books 1 60

Dome of the Rock 201
dreams 203
fidai 237

food and drink 248
Hagar 280-281
Hijra 298
holy books 308

Id al-Adha 342
Islam 373

John the Baptist 404
Judaism and Islam 410
Kaaba 419
maqam 457
Mecca 465
Muhammad 490, 492
Quraysh 574
renewal and reform
movements 585
Satan 605
tawhid 664
Zamzam 718
Abu Bakr xxxviic. 9-10

Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi
Quhafa 25
Ali ibn Abi Talib 33
Bedouin 99
Bilal 101
hadilh 2Z8
Muhammad 492
Quran 573
Shiism 624

Abu Zavd, Nasr Hamid 10-1 1,
48, 212, 656

adab 11-12. 192. 216-217
Adam and Eve 12
angel 43
animals 44
Arafat 57
Black Stone 108
creation 172
Idris 345
Kaaba 419-420
Mecca 465
paradise 546
Satan 603-604
adhan 12-13.177,474,484,
48L 504, 557

adulter)' 13-14, 25-26, 174

731

732 Encyclopedia of Islam

Afghani, Jamal al-Din al- xlivc,
14-15

Abduh, Muhammad 6
Banna, Hasan al- 89
Constitutional Revolution
164

creation 173
education 209
miracle 476-477
pan-lslamism 545
philosophy 555
Rashid Rida, Muhammad

renewal and reform
movements 587
Salafism 601
Sufism 640

Twelve- 1 mam Shiism 680
umma 689

Afghanistan xxvii, xxix, xlviic,
xlviiic, 15-16
Abd al-Rahman, Umar

4=5

Afghan mujahidin 16=17
Ausiralia 70
Biruni, Abu Rayhan al-
102

Buddhism and Islam
1 16 — 1 17
burqa 119
Delhi 186
dhimim 195
flag 245

Hanbali Legal School 288
Hekmatyar, Gulhuddin
295=29.6
liisba 303
holidays 306
Mughal dynasty 488
mujahid 499
music 505

Muslim Brotherhood 508
Pakistan 542
al-Qaida 564-565
refugees 584
suicide 642
Taliban 657-659
Usama bin Ladin 697-
698

Afghan mujahidin 16-17, lol.

296. 542. 608. 657-659
African Americans, Islam among
xlviic, 17-18. 102, 182, 199.
226-227. 4 53=454
African languages and literatures
18-19

afterlife 19-20

Aga Khan xlivc, 20-21, 219, 3Z9
agriculture 21, 21-2 3, 105,

219. 270.349
ahl al-bayt 23
Ahmadiyya xlivc, 23=24

African Americans, Islam
among 17, 18

Badawi, Ahmad al- 83
bidaa 101
blasphemy 109
Daoud Ahmed 181
Ghulam Ahmad 263
India 350
Jesus 397
Kashmir 425
Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 463
Pakistan 541

prophets and prophelhood
561

United States 694
Webb. Alexander Russell

708

Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid xlivc,
24=25

Aligarh 32,33
Barelwi. Sayyid Ahmad
93

Chiragh Ali 139
creation 173
education 209
renewal and reform
movements 587
tafsir 655

Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi
Quhafa 25=26
Abu Bakr 9
authority Z4
camel 1 28
fitna 241
hadith 2Z8. 2Z9
harem 292
hypocrites 322
Shiism 624
women 711
Ajmer 26-27. 301
Akbar (Mughal emperor) xluc.
27

Bangladesh 87
Hinduism and Islam 301
India 353
jizyu 403

Mughal dynasty 488-489
Persian language and
literature 551
Sirhindi, Ahmad 629
Akhbari School 27-28, 500,
620 , 625, 679, 699
Alawi 28-29
Ala w id dynasty 28, 29
alchemy 29=30
Alexander the Great 30-31.
150, 29L 368. 380, 392-393,
429

Algeria xlivc, xlvic, 31-32
Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi

3=4

archaeology 59
Arkoun, Muhammad 61
human rights 315
politics and Islam 556
al-Qaida 566

Aligarh 32-33. 35. 362. 708
Ali ibn Abi Talib xxv, xxvi.
xxxviiic, 33-34
ahl al-bayt 23
Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi
Quhafa 26
Alawi 28
basmala 94
Bcktashi Sufi Order 99
caliph 125
camel 128
cemetery 133
Emigrants 213
Fatima 230
fitna 241
Five Pillars 242
Gabriel 255
Ghadir Khumm 252
ghulat 264
Gulf Wars 274
hadith 279
harem 292

Hashimilc dynasty 295
Hijra 299
holidays 306
Iraq 369

Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
Khawarij 43J
Mahdi 447
Moses 483
Muhammad 492
Navruz 526
Night of Destiny 529
Qadiri Sufi Order 563
Ramadan 581
shahada 619
Shiism 623
sunna 645

Twelve-Imam Shiism 676
Umayyad Caliphate 687
Uthman ibn Affan 700
mil ay a 707
women 712
Allah xxiii, 34=35

Arabian religions, pre-
Islamic 52
Bangladesh 87
baqa and /ana 89-90
conversion 165
creation 171
dhikr 193
Rag 244

food and drink 246
ghulat 264
goddess 265
human rights 314
jinni 402

Judaism and Islam 409
names of God 515
prayer beads 558
Quran 57.1
lawhid 664
umma 688

All-India Muslim League
(A1ML) xlvc, 35.-36
Awami League 76
Bangladesh 88
Hinduism and Islam 301
India 355-356
Iqbal, Muhammad 362
Jinnah, Muhammad Ali
401

Pakistan 54i

Almohad dynasty xlc, 36-37
Berber 100
Granada 267
Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-
Din 326

Ibn Rushd, Muhammad
336

Ibn Tumart, Muhammad
340=341
taivhid 665

Almoravid dynasty xlc, 37-38 .

267, 34L 709
almsgiving xxiii, 38=39
alphabet 39-40. 69 , 12 L 20 L
675

amulets and talismans 40-4 L
619

Andalusia xxix, xxxvix, xlc, 4i.
41=42

Almohad dynasty 36
Almoravid dynasty 37
Christianity and Islam 142
Cordoba 167=168
dialogue 196
Europe 218-219
Harun al-Rashid 293
Hijra 299

Ibn Harm, Ali ibn Ahmad
ibn Said 331
Ibn Khaldun. Abd al-
Rahman 334
Jesus 397
minaret 474
Mudcjar 486
angel 42=43
animals 43-45

Ansar xxix, 45, 162. 213, 299.
448

anthropomorphism 45-46,
340.626

Antichrist 46, 214, 397, 495
anti-Semitism 46-47. 227, 382.

ILL 523
apostasy 48
Aqsa Mosque 48-49
angel 43
Buraq, al- 118
Dome of the Rock 202
Israel 381

Jerusalem 391. 394-395
Jordan 406
mosque 486
OIC 535

Arab xxvii. 49-50

Index 733

arabesque xxi, 50, 5 0=51
Arabian Nights xxi, 51-52, 55,
84, 159, 245, 292, 293
Arabian religions, pre- Islamic
52-53

Arabic language and literature
xxxi, xxxviiic, 53-55, 54t
African languages and
literatures 18
alphabet 39
Arab 49

Baqli, Ruzbihan 91
biography 102-103
Biruni, Abu Rayhan al-
106-107

Brethren of Purity 115-110
calligraphy 127
coffee 154
education 208, 209
Europe 219
holy books 308
Jerusalem 394
Shaarawi, Huda al- 613
lafsir 656

Umayyad Caliphate 687
Arab-Israeli conflicts xlvic,
56-57

Arab-lsracli War (1967)

Arab-Israeli conflicts 56
Egypt 212
Israel 380, 382
Lebanon 442
Muslim Brotherhood 507
Orientalism 537
Palestine 543
renewal and reform
movements 598
Arab-Israeli War (1973) 56,

234, 382, 533, 534, 597
Arab League xlvic, 57, 382.

407, 534. 544

Arab Socialist Baath Parly. See
Baath Party

Arafat 57-58. 282. 466
Arafat, Yasir xlviiic. 58-59,

382, 383. 508, 538, 543-545
archaeology 59-60
architecture xxi, 60. 60-61, 61
Baghdad 84
Bukhara 1 1 7
Dome of the Rock 201
garden 256

Husayniyya .320-321
Iraq 368
Mecca 468
minaret 474-475
Scljuk dynasty 611
Aristotle 225, 292, 336-338.
417, 501, 536

Arkoun, Muhammad 61=62.,
315, 656

Armenians xlvc, 62-63
art 50-51, 63-65. 6± 201

asceticism xxvi, 65=66
Ashari School 66-67
fate 228

Ghazali, Abu Hamid al- 261
Hasan al-Basri. al- 294
holy books 308
Ibadiyya 323
Ibn Rushd, Muhammad
337

Ibn Taymiyva, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 340
Mutazili School 512
Shafii Legal School 617
tawhid 665
theology 668
Ashura 67-68
calendar 124
Fatima 231
fitna 241
holidays 306
Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi
Talib 319

Husayniyya 320, 321
India 350

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 366
Karbala 423
Muharram 498
Shiism 624

Twelve-Imam Shiism 680
Assassins 68, 232. 238
Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal xlvc,
68=69. 69
caliph 125
caliphate 126
cinema 146
comic strips and comic-
books 159
Gulcn, Felhullah 268
holidays 306
Iran 363

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365
Istanbul 384
Khilafat Movement 433
Ottoman dynasty 539
Qadiri Sufi Order 564
renewal and reform
movements 587
Reza Shah Pahlavi 591
RP 582
Turkey 674

Aurangzeb xliiic, 69-70, 183.

353 403. 489-490. 629
Australia xxvii. 7.0-71
authority 71-75. 72 1
autobiography 75-76. 91_. 334,
338

Averroes. See Ibn Rushd.
Muhammad

Avicenna. See Ibn Sina. Abu Ali
al-Husayn

Awami League 76-77. 88
ay a TL TL 421

ayatollah xlviiic, 78. 435, 500
Ayodhya 78-79, 358
Azad. Abu al-Kalam 79, 93, 655
al-Azhar xlc, 79-80. SO

Banna, Hasan al- 88-89
education 210
Egypt 211

Husavni, Muhammad Amin
al- 312

madrasa 446, 447
student 634
university 696

B

Baath Party 81=82
Baghdad 84
comic strips and comic
books 159
Gulf Wars 276
Husayn, Saddam 315-31.7
Iraq 370,371
Muslim Brotherhood 508
Shiism 627
Syria 649
Bahism 82-83. 85
Badawi, Ahmad al- 83, 306
Baghdad xxxi. xxxviiic, xlic,
83-85

Abbasid Caliphate L 2

arabesque 51

Bahai Faith 85

books and hookmaking 1 13

cities 150

Farabi, Abu Nasr al- 224
food and drink 249
Hallaj, al-Husayn ibn
Mansur al- 285
Hanhali Legal School 288
harem 2 92
Harun al- Rash id 293
Iraq 369
Medina 470
paradise 547

Bahai Faith xlivc, 82, 85-86.

109, 626
Bakr. Abu

caliph 125
Emigrants 213
Hijra 299
Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
Naqshbandi Sufi Order 517
Twelve-Imam Shiism 677
Umar ibn al-Khattab 685
Uthman ibn Affan 700
Bamba. Ahmadu 86, 502
Bangladesh xxv. xxvii, xlviic,
76-77, 86-88. 104, 542, 561
Banna, Hasan al- xlvc, xlvic.
88-89

Abduh, Muhammad 6
Egypt 212
Ghannoushi. Rashid
al- 259

Muslim Brotherhood 506.
507

Qutb, Sayyid 576
renewal and reform
movements 588
baqa and (ana 89-91, J94.

549, 629

Baqli, Ruzbihan 91. 458, 529,
591

baraka 40, 91-92, 4J >48,
558. 707. 722
Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad 87,
92-93. 18.3. 498. 588
Basmachi 93=94
basmala 94. 198, 199, 221_
515,605

bat in 94= 95, 377
Bawa Muhaiyaddcen Fellowship
95=9.6

bazaar 96-98. 9Z, 1 64, 103
Bedouin 98=99

Badawi, Ahmad al- 83
folklore 245
food and drink 249
Hagar 281
Hijra 299
houses 311=312
Ismaili Shiism 377
Jordan 405
justice 416
Wahhabism 705=70.6
Bcktashi Sufi Order xlivc,
99-100, 390. 717
Berbers xxvii, xxxviiic, 100
Algeria 31=32
Almohad dynasty 36, 37
Almoravid dynasty 57
Cordoba 168
Ibn Khaldun, Abd al-
Rahman 334
Morocco 481
West Africa 709
Bible

Abraham 9

Adam and Eve 12

archaeology 59

creation 171

David 184-185

faith 223

holy books 308

Moses 482,483

Nasr, Seyyed Hosscin 520

Navruz 525

Quran 570

bidaa 86. 10L 176, 645
Bilal 101=102,474
bin Laden, Usama. Set* Usama
bin Ladin

biography 102-104, 116,
332-333. 491
birth control and family
planning 7, 104, 104-105,
388

birth rites 103=10.6

734 Encyclopedia of Islam

Biruni, Abu Rayhan al- 106-
107. 300-301
Bistami, Abu Yazid al- 90,
107-108, 529, 640, 663
Black Muslims. See Nation of
Islam

Black Slone xxxvix, xlc, 108
lsmaili Shiism 32Z
Kaaba 119, 420
Mecca 468
Muhammad 492
paradise 546
sunna 644
umra 691
Zamzam 718

blasphemy 107, 108-109. 285
blood 109-110,424
boat 110, 110-111
Bohra 111,260, 378,379
books and bookmaking 111-
113, ill

Bosnia and Hcrzegovena 1 14-
115, 585

Brethren of Purity 115-116,

338

Buddhism and Islam xxiv,
116-117
Afghanistan 16
Hijra 298
holy books 309.

Ibrahim ibn Adham 341
Indonesia 358
Kashmir 426
Malaysia 451-453
Nepal 526
Shiism 623
Sufism 639

Bukhara 93-94. 117. 659
Bumiputra 117-118
Buraq. al- 118. 118. 310. 528
burqa 1 19. 561
Byzantine Empire 166, 218,
29_3. 384, 393, 41L 539. 648

C

Cairo 120-124. 121 m. 122
bazaar 96

books and bookmaking
112,113
colonialism 157
Fatimid dynasty 231
lsmaili Shiism 378
minaret 474
Takfir wa’l-Hijra 657
calendar xxv, xxxv, 124-125
caliph xxvi, xxxi, 125-126
caliphate 126-127. See also
specific caliphates
calligraphy 64, 122, 107, 574,
619

camel 128.284
Camp David accords 128-129.
211592

Canada 129-131. 236. 375.

377. 509-510
cal 131-132

cemetery 122, 132, 132-1 34
Central Asia and the Caucasus
xxvii, 117, 134-135
Chechnya 1 35, 135-136, 499.
619

children 126, 136-1 38

birth control and family
planning 104
birth rites 105-106
Crusades 175
education 207
harem 292

Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn

339

Id al-Adha 342
Id al-Filr 343
student 634
women .712
China 138, 161, 330
Chiragh Ali 139
Chishti Sufi Order 139-141,
140

Afghanistan 15
Hinduism and Islam 301
India 353
Khan, Inayai 430
Nizam al-Din Awliya 530
Persian language and
literature 551
qawwali 568
Sufi Movement 637
Sufi Order International
637

Christianity and Islam xxiv.
xxvii, xxxi. xliic, 141-144.
143

Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani 4
Abraham 9
Adam and Eve 12
ahl al-bayt 23
Ahmadiyya 24
Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid
25

Akbar 22
Algeria 31
Allah 34

Almohad dynasty 37
Andalusia 41.42
anthropomorphism 45
Antichrist 46
anti-Semitism 46
Arabian religions, pre-
Islamic 52, 53
Arabic language and
literature 53
Armenians 63
Ashura 67
blasphemy .108
Bosnia and Hcrzegovena

ILL 115
Cairo 122

ce meter)' 132
circumcision 149
Copts and the Coptic
Church 166
Cordoba 168
covenant 170
Crusades 175-176
daawa 178
David 185
dhimmi 194, . 19 5
dialogue 196-197
dietary laws 198
Dome of the Rock 202
faith 223
Hijra 298

holy books 306-309
Jerusalem 391, 393
Jesus 396-397
John the Baptist 404
kafir 421
Latin America 439
madras;! 446
Malaysia 452, 453
mawlid 465
Mohammedanism 477
moon 479
Morocco 481
Moses 482
Mudejar 486-487
Muhammad 492, 493
New Zealand 528
Night of Destiny 529
qibla 568, 569
revelation 589
saint 599
Saladin 600
Satan 603
secularism 610-611
Shiism 623
soul and spirit 631
Sudan 636
Sufism 639
Sunnism 647
Syria 648

West Africa 709-710
cinema 1 44-149, 145. 260. 650
circumcision 83, 106. 1 49-1 50
cities 96, 150-152, 312
citizenship 152,403
civil society 152-4.53. 191
coffee xxi, 1 54-1 55, 155
colonialism xxxii. 1 55-1 58
comic strips and comic books
158-160

communism 160-161,511
Companions of the Prophet
xxiii. 162
caliph 125
caliphate 126
camel 128
cemetery 133
Copts and the Coptic
Church 166
fitna 241

hadith 279

Hanafi Legal School 287
Hanbali Legal School 288
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 325
Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 339
muezzin 48 7
Salafism 601
Shiism 624

Twelve- 1 mam Shiism 678
Wahhabism Z04
constitutionalism 162-164,
164

Constitutional Revolution 83,
163. 164-165, 363
conversion xxxi, xxxii,

165- 166

Copts and the Coptic Church

166- 167 , 161

Cordoba xxxviiic, 1 I I . 1 67—
168, 336, 474, 569
Council of Amcrican-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) 168-169,
695

Council on Islamic Education
(CIE) 169-170
covenant 14^ 170, 19J. 526.
559. 671

creation 7X 170-174. 308,
479. 632, 668

crime and punishment 1 74—
175, 620

Crusades xlc, 175-176
Badawi, Ahmad al- 83
Christianity and Islam
142-143
CIE 169
cinema 146
Fatimid dynasty 232
Islam 373
Israel 381
Istanbul 384
Jerusalem 394
Lebanon 441
Orientalism 536
Saladin 600-601
Turkey 674

customary law 176. 309, 620

D

daawa 177-179
Daawa Party of Iraq xlvic,
179-180
daawa 178
Gulf Wars 275,277
Iraq 370,371
Shiism 626

Twelve-Imam Shiism 681
Damascus xxxi, xxxviic.
xxxviiic, ISO. 180-181
Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi 3
Bilal 101

Index 735

Iraq 369
Jordan 406
Medina .410
paradise 547

Daoud Ahmed 17, 181-182
ilar al-Islam and ilar al-hcirb
182-163

Dara Shikoh 183-184 . 551,
563

Dar ul-Arqarn 184

David 184-185. 242. 244, 392

death 185-186

baqa and /ana 89-90
cemetery 132-133
eschatology 213-214

fate 228

funerary rituals 250-251
Judgment Day 413
martyrdom 458
slavery 630
suicide 641-642
Delhi 150, 186-189, 187m,
349,462

Delhi Sultanate xxxii, 189-190
Bangladesh 87
Delhi 186
India 350,352-353
kafir 421

Persian language and
literature 551
democracy 190-191
Deoband 191-192, 351, 356
dervish 132-193

Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal
69

Mevlevi Sufi Order
471-472

Rifai Sufi Order 592
Rumi, Jalal al-Din 593
Sufi Order International
638

Sufism 639
tekke 666
Turkey 675
dhikr 193-194. 124
clhimmi xxxi, 194=196
dialogue 144, 196-197, 269,
413

dietary laws 1 09, 1 35, 198.

198-199, 246, 250, 284, 620
divorce 136, 176, 199-200,
203, 315
dog 200=201

Dome of the Rock xxxviiic,

49, 2 0 1 - 2 02, 381, 39L 39L
394-395

dreams 202-204, 632
Druze xlc, 204=205, 232, 44L
626

E

East Africa 206-207. 252
East Pakistan. See Bangladesh

education xxii, xxxii, 207-210.
210

Baghdad 84
books and bookmaking
112. 113

children 136. 137
CIE 169
cities 151

Ghazali, Zaynab al- 262
Hanafi Legal School 287
human rights 315
Husayniyya 321
India 359
Jordan 407
kuilab 437
literacy 445

Nasir. Jamal Abd al- 518
Nation of Islam 522
Nizam al-Din Awliya 530
Quran 573

Rashid Rida. Muhammad

582

refugees 584
renewal and reform
movements 585, 588
Reza Shah Pahlavi 592
RP 582
slaver)' 629
student 634
tekke 666
ulama 684
United States 693
university 696
women 712
Zaytuna Mosque 721
Egypt xxv. xxxi. xxxviic. xlic,
xliie, xliiic, xlivc, xlviic,
210=21 2, 211
Ahd al-Raziq, Ali 5
Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid 10
agriculture 21
alchemy 30

Arab-lsracli conflicts 56
Arab League 57
archaeology 59, 60
art 64

Azhar. al- Z9=80
Badawi. Ahmad al- 83
Banna, Hasan al- 88-89
baraka 92
birth rites LQ6
Bohra 111

books and bookmaking
112

Camp David accords
128-129

Fatimid dynasty 231-233
Funj Sultanate 252
Hagar 281
ha ram 290
Harun al-Rashid 293
Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami
303

holidays 3Q6

houses 312, 313
human rights 315
Ibn al-Farid. Abu Hafs
Umar 328
Islamism 376
Israel 382
mad rasa 446. 447
Moses 482-484
Muhammad Ali dynasty
496=497

Muslim Brotherhood
506-508

politics and Islam 556
renewal and reform
movements 587, 588
Sadat, Muhammad Anwar
al- 597=598

Takfir wa'1-Hijra 656-657
Tanzimat 661
Westernization Z10
Emigrants 45, 162, 213. 299,
688

eschatology 1 86, 2 1 3-2 1 4, 259,
413.668

ethics and morality 2 1 4-2 1 7,

302-303. 572

Europe xxiv, xxxii, 217- 220.
218

evil eye 106. 220. 220-221. 231

F

Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn
222-223

faith xxiii-xxiv, 223-224
family planning. Set* birth
control and family planning
Jana. See baqa and fana
Farabi, Abu Nasr al- xlc, 224-

226, ±J_L 633

Faraizi movement 87, 226, 588
Farrakhan, Louis 18, 47. 226-

227, 523

Farsi. See Persian language and
literature

fasting xxiii. 227-228
Ashura 67
blood 110
dietary laws 199
Five Pillars 243
food and drink 248
Ramadan 580
umma 688
fate 228-229. 284
Fatiha 221, 229-230. 570
Fatima xxxviic. 230-231
ahl al-bayt 23
Alawi 28

Ah ibn Ahi Talib 33
calendar 124
Fatimid dyna sty 231
Gabriel 255
goddess 2o5
harem 292

Hashimitc dynasty 295
Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi
Talib 319
imam 348
Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
Khadija bint Khuwaylid ibn
Asad 428
Libya 443
Mary 460
Muhammad 491
Night of Destiny 529
prophets and prophethood
560

Ramadan 581
Shiism 623

Twelve-Imam Shiism 680
women 712
Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi
Talib 720

Fatimid dynasty xxxvix, xlc,
xlic, 231-233, 232
Berber 100
daarni 1 77
Druze 203
Egypi 214

Ismaili Shiism .377-378
Shiism 625
Tunisia 673
fatwa 233

Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saud
(king of Saudi Arabia) 190,
233-2 34. .li&mSJI
feasting 199 234-235, 240.

205,342

fedayccn. See fidai
Federation of Islamic

Associations (FIA) 130,236
Fez xxxvix, 157.236-237,

237, 481
fidai 237-238
film. See cinema
fiqh 238-240

Fire 214, 2 40-2 4 L, 413, 421,
632, 641-642

First Gulf War. See Gulf War
(1990-1991)
fitna 241-242,296
Five Pillars xxiii. 242-243.

24.1 See also almsgiving; hajj;
prayer; shahada
adab 11
Ahmad iyya 24
authority Z3
Bangladesh 87
cities 150
colonialism 157
dhikr 193
Druze 203

ethics and morality 21.5
faith 223
fasting 122
food and drink 248
Ghazali, Abu Hamid
al- 261

736 Encyclopedia of Islam

Five Pillars (continued)

Islam 372
taqwa 663
travel 612

Twelve- 1 mam Shiism 679
United States 692-693
Wahhabism 704. 703
women 7 12
ziyara 722
flag 243 r 245j 244
folklore 118.245-246
food and drink 154-155.

227-228. 246-250. 247. 522.
580-581
France

Ahd al-Qadir al-Jazairi 3-4
Bamba, Ahmadu 86
Bangladesh 87
Damascus 181
Hashimitc dynasty 295
human rights 315
Husayn ibn Ali 318
Israel 381
Tunisia 673

funerary rituals 250-252. 361.
632.612

Funj Sultanate 252. 636
Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar 252-253

G

Gabriel xxiii. 254-255
angel 43
Arafat 57
basmala 94
Black Stone LOS
Buracj, al- 118
faith 223
Hagar 281
holy books 308
Muhammad 492
Night Journey and Ascent
528

Night of Destiny 529
paradise 546
Quran 572
revelation 590
Rushdie. Salman 595
soul and spirit 632
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand
255-256
A1ML 35=36
Azad. Abu al-Kalam 79
Hinduism and Islam 302
India 355-357
Jamiyyat Ulama-i Hind
389

Jinnah, Muhammad Ali
401

Khilafat Movement 433
garden 84, 172, 256, 256-257.
546

Ghadir Khumm 34. 124, 235.
257-258, 306, 623

Ghalib, Mirza Asad Ali Khan

258. 260. 552

Ghannoushi. Rashid al- 258-

259. 673

ghayba 111.259-260. 447. 678
ghazal 258. 260-261. 551
Ghazali, Abu Hamid al- xlc,
261-262
adab 11
Baghdad 84
bazaar 92
dreams 203
ethics and morality 217
Farabi. Abu Nasr al- 225
Ibn Rushd. Muhammad
337

philosophy 554
Sc ljuk dynasty 611
Sufism 640
ulama 684

Ghazali. Zaynab al- 262-263,
581

Ghulam Ahmad, Mirza xlivc,
23. 24. 263-264. 561
ghulat 264, 620. 626
goddess 265. 343
Gospel 265-266
covenant 170
David 185
holy books 3 08. 309
Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad
ibn Said 331
kafir 421
Mary 460

People of the Book 548
prophets and prophelhood

539

Quran 570

government. Islamic 125. 1 62—
164, 262, 266^267, 365
Granada xliic. 267-268. 547,
671

Grand Mosque (Mecca)
Abraham 9
Kaaba 419
maqam 4 57
Mecca 465. 467. 468
mosque 485
Salafism 602
Saudi Arabia 608
Zamzam 718
Great Britain

Ahmad Khan. (Sir) Sayyid

25

AIML 35,36
Australia Z0
Awaini League 76
Azad. Abu al-Kalam 79
Baghdad 84
Bangladesh 87
Banna, Hasan al- 88-89
Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad
92=93

Bumiputra 118

cinema 148
colonialism 156
Delhi LS8
Egypt 212

Faraizi Movement 226
Hashimitc dynasty 295
Hinduism and Islam 301
Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami

304

Husayni. Muhammad Amin
al- 317

Husayn ibn Ali 318
India 350, 354=357
Iran 362-363
Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365
Iraq 370.371
Israel 381.382
Jinnah, Muhammad Ali
400-401

Khilafat Movement 433
Malaysia 452
Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 463
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
478

Muhammad Ali dynasty
496=497

Muslim Brotherhood 506.
507

Palestine 543
World Muslim Congress
714

Gulen. Fethullah 197.. 268-
269

Gulf States 269-273. See also
specific countries, e g.: Kuwait
Gulf War (1990-1991) 274-
276

Arab League 57

colonialism 158

Husayn. Saddam 315-317

Iraq 370-371

oil 533

OPEC 534

Orientalism 537

PLO 544

al-Qaida 56 5

Syria 650

Gulf War (Iraq War, 2003- )
276-277
Arab League 57
colonialism 158
fidai 238

Gulf Wars 276-277
Husayn. Saddam 317
Iraq 367. 371
Jordan 407
OIC 535
oil 533
al-Qaida 566
refugees 584
Sunnism 647
Syria 650
ulama 685

Gulf Wars xlviiic, 158, 273-
277, 370-371. 371 533 See
also specific wars, e g.: Iran-
Iraq War (1980-1988)

H

hadith xxiii, xxvi, 278-280
anthropomorphism 46
birth control and family
planning 105
food and drink 247
Hagar xxiv, 9, 280-281, 419.

461 718-719
hajj xxiii, xxxii, 2 81-28 3.

282m
Arafat 57
asceticism 65
Black Stone 108
dietary laws 199
ethics and morality 215
feasting 234
Five Pillars 243
food and drink 248
Gulen, Fethullah 269
Hanbali Legal School 288
hurum 290
Ha run al- Rashid 293
Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad 330
Id al-Adha 342
India 360
Islam 372
Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
Kaaba 419
Malcolm X 454
Mecca 466-468
muezzin 487
Muhammad 494
Nation of Islam 523
QIC 535
Salafism 601
Satan 605

Shad hili Sufi Order 616
sunna 644
taqwa 662
travel 672
umma 688
umra 690-691
Zamzam 718
ziyara 722
hal 194. 283=284
halal 198,246.250, 284=285
Hallaj, al-Husayn ibn Mansur al-
xxxvix. 285
apostasy 48
baqa and fana 90
blasphemy LQ9
Junayd, Abu al-Qasim 415
kafir 422
martyrdom 458
Sufism 640

Hamas xxvii, xlviiic, 285-286
Arab-lsracli conflicts 56
Arafat, Yasir 58

Index 737

civil society 1 53
democracy 190
Islam ism 376
Israel 383

Muslim Brotherhood 508
Palestine 533
renewal and reform
movements 588
Salafism 602
umma 689

I lanafi Legal School xxv,
xxxvix, 286-287
abortion 7
Baghdad 83
Bangladesh 86
Bosnia and Herzegovena
113

customary law 1_76
Deoband 192
fiqh 239

Harun al- Rashid 293
India 350
Iraq 367
Israel 380
Jordan 306

Maliki Legal School 355
Murjia 503
Ottoman dynasty 539
Pakistan 531

Shafii, Muhammad ibn Idris
al- 616

Shafii Legal School 617
Tamerlane 660
theology 669
Tunisia 672

Hanbali Legal School xxv, 288
bidaa 101
fujh 239
Gulf States 270
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 323
Ibn I lanbal, Ahmad
330-331

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 339=330
India 350
Saudi Arabia 607
Sufism 630
Wahhabism 703
hikficfci 288-289. 378, 663
Haqqani, Muhammad Nazim

haram 198,216,246.279 ,283.
290-291

harem 27, 291-293,312,331
Harun al-Rashid 84,293-294,
616

Hasan al-Basri, al- xxxviiic,

229, 294.511,512.578
Hashimite dynasty 294-295,
318, 306

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin 16.
295-290

heresy 101. 296=29 7

Herzegovina. See Bosnia and
Herzegovena
Hidden Imam
ayatollah 78
Babism 82=83
Bahai Faith 85
Bohra LU

Ismaili Shiism 378, 379
Khomeini, Ruhollah 435
Mahdi 337

mujahid 500

Hijra xxv, xxix, xxxviic,
298-300
calendar 124
constitutionalism lo2

Emigrants 213
India 357

Judaism and Islam 41 1
Mahdiyya movement 338
Medina 369=370
Muhammad 493
Quraysh 575
Ramadan 580
Takfir wa'I-Hijra 657
Umar ibn al-Khattab 685
Hinduism and Islam xxxii,
300-302. Ml
Ahmadiyya 24
Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid
24,25
A1ML 35
Akbar 27
Aurangzeb 70
Ayodhya 78
Bangladesh 86-88
Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad 92
Biruni, Abu Ravhan al- 107
Dara Shikoh 183
Delhi 186, 188
Delhi Sultanate L89
dhimmi 195
dialogue 196
divorce 200

holy books 309
India 350-352
Indonesia 358
Islam 373
Ismaili Shiism 379
Kashmir 326
Khilafat Movement 333
Malaysia 352
Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 463
Mughal dynasty 488-490
Nasr. Scyyed Hosscin 520
Shiism 623. 626
hisba 302, 302-303

Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami 303-

304, 536

Hizbullah xxvii, xlviiic,
30 3- 305

Arab-lsraeli conflicts 56
civil society 1 53
democracy 190

Fadlallah, Muhammad
Husayn 222
Iran 364
Islamism 376
Israel 383

Judaism and Islam 313
Lebanon 442
martyrdom 359
Twelve-Imam Shiism 681
holidays 3Q5-3Q6
camel 1 28
CIE 169
creation 171
feasting 234
food and drink 238
Ghadir Khumm 257
hajj 282
Id al-Adha 342
Id al-Filr 342
Navruz 524-526
holy books xxiv-xxv. 306-309.

307. 309. 482. 520
honor and shame 309
horse j jg, 309-3 L Q, 4 U zQ*
houri 246,310-311,458
House of Islam. See Jar al-lslam
and Jar al-harb
House of war. See Jar al-lslam
and Jar al-harb
houses 311, 311-313, 561
hujja 313-314
human rights 314-315

Abou El Fadl, Khaled 8
apostasy 48
circumcision 149
crime and punishment 174
ethics and morality 217
Jamaat-i Islami 388
justice 418

Khomeini, Ruhollah 33i>
Libya 333

Mernissi. Fatima 471
MPAC 508
renewal and reform
movements 589
Salafism 602
Saudi Arabia 608
student 634
sunna 646

Husayn, Saddam xlviiic,
315-317

Baath Parly 8L 82
Baghdad 83
children L37
comic strips and comic
books 159

Daawa Party of Iraq 179
fidai 238
flag 244-245
Gulf Stales 271
Gulf Wars 273-277
Iran 364
Iraq 370.371
Khomeini. Ruhollah 436

Mujahid in-j Khalq 499
oil 533
OPEC 533
pan-lslamism 536
refugees 583
Shiism 627
Syria 650

Twelve- Imam Shiism 681
Husayni, Muhammad Amin al-
317-318. 714

Husayn ibn Ali, Sharif of Mecca
xlvc, 318-319
Cairo 123
death 186

Hashimite dynasty 295
Karbala 422-424
sayyid 609
suicide 642

Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib
xxxviiic, 319
Adam and Eve 12
ahl al-bayl 23
Ashura 67
filna 241
holidays 306
horse 310

Husayn iyya 320, 321
Mahdi .337
Muharram 498
Wahhabism 705
Husayn iyya 319-321 ,320
Hussein. Saddam. See Husayn,
Saddam

hypocrites 321-322

I

I bad iyya 270, 323-324, ±31
672

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,

Muhammad xliiic, 324-325
Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud 2
Bedouin 99

Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al
Saud 233

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 340
al-Qaida 565
renewal and reform
movements 588
shaykh 623
tawhid 665
ulama 684
Wahhabism 704, 705
ziyara 724

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din xlic,
326=328

Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid 10
creation 173
Ibn al-Farid. Abu Hafs
Umar 329
Joseph 308
Khadir 429

Khomeini, Ruhollah 434

738 Encyclopedia of Islam

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din
(continued)

Perfect Man 549
philosophy 554
renewal and reform
movements 588
revelation 591
Sirhindi, Ahmad 629
soul and spirit 633
wall 707

Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-Hasan
Ali 328

Ibn al-Farid, Abu Hafs Umar
328-329

Ibn Battuta, Abu Abd Allah
Muhammad al-Lawati xliic,
is. 12. 159, 330. 672. 689

Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad xxxvix,
330-321
hadith 2Z9

Hanbal i Legal School 288
ijtihad 3_46
imam 348
Mutazili School 512
Shafii, Muhammad ibn Idris
a!- 616
tawhid 665
theology 668

Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad ibn
Said xlc, 2LL 331-332

Ibn Idris, Ahmad 332

Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad 254,
332-333, 429. 470. 491,494.
590.718

Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din Ismail
ibn Umar 33 3-3 34.340

Ibn Khaldun, Abd al-Rahman
ibn Muhammad xliic, 99,

151. 214, 334-335

Ibn Muqla, Abu Ali Muhammad
328. 335-336

Ibn Rushd, Muhammad xlic,
336, 336-338, 337
Almohad dynasty 37
Europe 219

Ghazali, Abu Hamid al- 262
Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-
Din 326
justice 417
Mudejar 487
philosophy 354
theology 669

Ibn Saud, Abd al-Aziz. See Abd
al-Aziz ibn Saud

Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn
xlc, 338-339. 555
creation 1 73
Europe 219

Farabi, Abu Nasr al- 225
kafir 422
Mullah Sadra 501
philosophy 554
science 610
soul and spirit 633

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad xlic, 339-340
bidaa 101

Hanbali Legal School 288
Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din

333

intercession 361
Jahiliyya 387
miracle 476
philosophy 554
Rashid Rida, Muhammad
581

theology 669
ulama 684
Usama bin Ladin 698
wal i 708
ziyara 724

Ibn Tumart, Muhammad 36,
340-341, 665

Ibrahim ibn Adham 1 16, 341
Id al-Adha 9, UL 234. m
282, 30 342. 7.2
Id al-Fitr 342-343
calendar 124
feasting 234
food and drink 248
holidays 305
moon 479
MPAC 509
Ramadan 580
women 712

idolatry 343-344 Sec also shirk
Abraham 9
bidaa 101
Black Stone 108
blasphemy 108
Jesus 39Z

Judaism and Islam 409
kafir 420-421
saint 599
Satan 604
Satanic Verses 605
shahada 618
shirk 627
Sufism 639
umma 688
Wahhabism Z04
Idris (prophet) 344-345. 428
ijmaa 239, 345-346. 346, 417,
45JL 679

imam xxv-xxvi, 347-348
ayatollah 78
Babism 82-83
Bahai Faith 85
batin 95
bidaa 101
Bohra 111
education 208
eschatology 214
Ghadir Khumm 257
ghayba 259

Ghazali, Ahu Hamid al- 262
Gulen, Fethullah 268

Gulf States 272
hadith 279
holidays 306
holy books 307
houses 313
hujja 313
Ibadiyya 323,, 324
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

Muhammad 325
idolatry 343-344
Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
minbar 475

Muhammad al-Mahdi 497
prayer 558
Satanic Verses 606
Twelve-Imam Shiism
678-679

United States 693
Wahhabism 704
ivuluyu 707
Yemen 716
Zaydi Shiism 720
Ziyara 723

India xxvii, xxxi-xxxii, xlic.
xliic, xltiic, xlivc, xlvic, 348-
358, 349, 355
African Americans, Islam
among 17
Ahmadiyya 24
Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid
24

AIML 35,36
Ajmer 26
Aligarh 32
asceticism 66
Aurangzcb 69-70
Ayodhya 78-79
Azad. Abu al-Kalam Z9
Bangladesh 86, 88
Barclwi, Sayyid Ahmad 92
Bimni, Abu Ravhan al- 107
Bohra ill

Buddhism and Islam 116
cinema 147-148
Dara Shikoh 183
Delhi 186-188
Deoband 191-192
divorce 200
Emigrants 213
Faraizi Movement 226
Fatiha 230
food and drink 249
Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar
252-253

Gandhi, Mohandas
Karamchand 255-256
Hijra 299

Hinduism and Islam
300-302
holidays 306
houses 312
Islam 373

Jinnah. Muhammad Ali

400 = 4 0 1

Kashmir 425-427
Khilafat Movement 432
Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala
462-463

Mughal dynasty 488
pan-Islamism 546
Persian language and
literature 550-552
purdah 561
refugees 583=584
secularism 610
Tablighi Jamaat 651
World Muslim Congress
714

Indian National Congress (INC)
25, 35, 255, 355-356, 389,
100=401. 433

Indonesia xxv, xxvii, xliiic, xlvc.
xlvic, 358-360
birth control and family
planning 104
food and drink 250
Hinduism and Islam 302
houses 312
politics and Islam 556
al-Qaida 566

intercession 360-361 . 413.

423. 476 548, 708

International Muslim Society.

See later Federation of Islamic
Associations (FIA)

Iqbal, Muhammad xlvic, 356-
357, 361-362,401.463,541.
555. 660

Iran xxv, xxvi, xxxi, xliic. xlivc,
xlvc. xlvic. xlviic. 362-364,
363

Abbasid Caliphate 1
Afghani, Jamal al-Din
al- 14

archaeology 59
Babism 82-83
Bahai Faith 85
Baqli. Ruzbihan 91
bazaar 98
biography 103
birth control and family
planning 105
cinema 146-147
Constitutional Revolution
16 4- 165

Fadlallah, Muhammad
Husayn 222
fidai 238
flag 244

Hanbali Legal School 288
Harun al-Rashid 293
Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin 296
hijab 297
Hizbullah 305
holidays 306
houses 313
human rights 315
Husayniyya 321

Index 739

Iraq 367
madrasa 447
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
478

mujahid 499
mullah 301

People of the Book 548
politics and Islam 556
Qajar dynasty 567
RP 583

Shariati, Ali 621
Turkish language and
literature 675
Westernization 710
Iranian hostage crisis (1979-
1980) 364, 366, 537
Iranian Revolution (1978-1979)
xxii, 365-367
anti-Semitism 47
constitutionalism 163
Daawa Parly of Iraq 179
Gulf Slates 271
Hizbullah 303
Husayn, Saddam 316
Husayniyya 321
Islam 325
Mahdi 448
Moses 484
mujahid 500
Mujah i din-i Khalq 499
Muslim Brotherhood 508
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 519
oil 533

politics and Islam 556
student 634

Twelve-Imam Shiism 679,
680

I ran- Iraq War (1980-1988)
xlviic, 273-27 4, 315. 316,
370-371,534,535
Iraq xxv, xxvi, xlivc, xlvc,
xlviiic, 367-372
Abbasid Caliphate 1
anti-Semitism 47
Arah-lsraeli conflicts 56
Arab League 52
archaeology 59, 60
Baath Party 81-82
Babism 82
Baghdad 83-84
Bahai Faith 85
books and bookmaking
113

Daawa Parly of Iraq
179-180
democracy 190
flag 244-245
Hanafi Legal School 287
harem 291-292
Hashimite dynasty 295
Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami
303

holidays 306
houses 313

Husayn, Saddam 315=312
Husayn ibn Ali 318
Iran 364

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 366
Ismaili Shiism 322
Israel 383
mujahid 499
Mujahidi n-i Khalq 500
People of the Book 548
al-Qaida 565
suicide 642
Islam 372-375

defined xxii-xxv
Islamic Group. See l amaat-i
Islatni

Islamic law. See fiqh; sharia
Islamic Resistance Movement.
Sec Hamas

Islamic Society of North
America (ISN A) xlviic, 130,
375-376. 695
Islamism 88-89.321-322,
326=322, m 615, 657, 669
Ismaili Shiism xxvi, xxxii,
322=329
apostasy 48
hatin 95
Bohra ill

Brethren of Purity 115
dumvci 1Z2=178
Delhi Sultanate 189
Fatimid dynasty 232
Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar

ghayba 260
hujja 313-314
India 350
Moses 483
Shiism 625

Israel xxvii, xlvic, xlviic. xlviiic,
379-383
anti-Semitism 47
Aqsa Mosque 49
Arab-lsraeli conflicts 56
Arab League 52
Camp David accords
128-129
dialogue 192
Dome of the Rock 202
flag 244
Hamas 286
Hizh al-Tahrir al-Islami
304

Hizbullah 304.305
houses 312
Iraq 370

Judaism and Islam 413
Moses 482

Muhammad Ali dynasty

492

mujahid 499

Muslim Brotherhood 508
Palestine 543

PLO 544
Taliban 659
World Muslim Congress
714

Istanbul xliic, 383-385, 384,
4Z± 488

J

Jaafar al-Sadiq xxxvix, 386-
387. - 620, 624, 652,

6ZL679

Jahiliyya 59, m 387-388. 398
la maat-i lslami xlvic, 388-389
Abd al-Rahman, Umar 4
Afghan mujahidin 16
Bangladesh 88
Gulf Wars 225
Hijra 300
India 351
Islamism 326
jizya 403

Mawdudi. Abu al-Ala
462=464
Pakistan 542
pan- Islamism 546
Rahman. Fazlur 579
Salafism 602
sunna 646
lafsir 655

Tanzccm-c lslami 660
Jamiyyat Ulama.--i Hind 389,

389, 462

Jamiyyat Llama-i Islam (JUI)
389, 389-390, 658
Janissary xlivc. 99, 390-391,

539

Jerusalem xxxviic, xlc, xlic,

391, 391-396. 392m
Aqsa Mosque 49
Crusades 1 75
David 185

Dome of the Rock 201.

20 2

Hashimite dynasty 295
houses 313

Husayni, Muhammad Amin
al- 312
Iraq 368
Israel 380, 381
Judaism and Islam 410
Judgment Day 413
Night Journey and Ascent
528

OIC 535
Oslo Accords 538
qibla 568-569
Rabia al-Adawiyya 529
Salad in 600
Jesus 39.6=397
agriculture 22
ah I al-bayt 23
Allah 34

anthropomorphism 45

Antichrist 46
aya 22
Cairo 122

Christianity and Islam 141
covenant 1 70
David 185

Dome of the Rock 202
faith 223
Gabriel 254
Ghulam Ahmad 264
Gospel 266
Haqqani, Muhammad
Nazim al- 290
Hijra 298
holy books 308
Jerusalem 391
John the Baptist 403-404
Judgment Day 413
kafir 421
Khadir 428
Mary 460

Night of Destiny 529
People of the Book 548
prophets and prophethood
560

revelation 589
shirk 627
soul and spirit 632
jihad xxvii, 397=399

Abd al-Rahman, Umar 4
Afghan mujahidin 16
Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad
92=93

Chiragh Ali 139
Christianity and Islam 143
dreams 203
ethics and morality 217
Ghazali, Zaynab al- 263
Gulf Wars 275=277
Hekmatyar. Gulbuddin 296
Hijra 300

Hizb al-Tahrir al-lslami
304

houri 311
Ibn Ahd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 325
Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 340
ijtihad 346
Islam 373
Libya 443

martyrdom 458, 459
mujahid 498,499
Muslim Brotherhood 507
PLO 544
al-Qaida 564
Qutb, Sayyid 576
renewal and reform
movements 587, 588
Sadat, Muhammad Anwar
al- 592=598
Safavid dynasty 598
Saladin 6Q1
Saudi Arabia 607

740 Encyclopedia of Islam

jihad ( continued )
sermon 612
Sokoto Caliphate 630
Sufism 610
suicide 612
Taliban 659
terrorism 667
Twelve-Imam Shiism 680
Umar Tal 686
Usama bin Ladin 697-698
Usman Dan Fodio 700
Wahhabism 705
jihad movements xxvi-xxvii,
399-100, 41±, 481 585,
601.657

Jinnah, Muhammad Ali xlvic,
400 r 100-102
AIML 35-36
Gandhi, Mohandas
Kara me hand 255
Hinduism and Islam 30i
holidays 306
India 355,357
Iqbal, Muhammad 362
Pakistan 5U

jinni 133, 313-314, 102, 601
jizya 102-103
John the Baptist 103-101
Jordan xlvic, 101-108, 405
Arab-lsraeli conflicts 56
Bedouin 98

Hashimite dynasty 291-29 5
horse 310
houses 312
human rights 313
Husayn ibn Ali 318
PLO 511

Joseph 203, 108=109
Judaism and Islam xxiv. xxvii.
xxxi, 109=113
Abel al-Qadir al-Jilani 1
Abraham 9
Adam and Eve 12
Algeria 31
Allah 31

Almohad dynasty 3Z
alphabet 39
Andalusia 41. 12
anti-Semitism 46, 47
Arabian religions, pre-
Islamic 52-53

Arabic language and

literature 53
Ashura 67
blasphemy 108
Cairo 122
cemetery 132
Christianity and Islam 141
circumcision 149
covenant 170
David 183
dhimmi 194, 195
dialogue 19-6-197
dietary laws 198

Fatimid dynasty 231
Hagar 281
Hijra 298

holy books 306-309
Israel 380
Jerusalem 391
John the Baptist 404
kafir 121
madrasa 116
mawlid 163
Medina 170
Morocco 481
Moses 482, 183
Muhammad 492. 193
Muslim Brotherhood 507
Night of Destiny 529
qibla 568-569
revelation 589
Satan 603

Sephardic Jews 611-612
Shiism 623
soul and spirit 631
Syria 648

Judgment Day xxiv, xxvi,
113=115
afterlife 19
ahl al-bayt 23
Allah 31
angel 13
Antichrist 46
Black Stone 108
creation 172
crime and punishment
174

death 185. 186
eschatology 211
ghayba 260
hajy 282

Hasan al-Basri. al- 294
intercession 361
Jerusalem 391, 394
Judaism and Islam 410
justice 416
Mahdi 117
moon 179

Muhammad 492. 495
Nation of Islam 521
pbuh 548

prophets and prophethood
560

Quran 570, 571
Satan 603
sermon 613
shahada 619
Shiism 624. 625
soul and spirit 632
Torah 671

Junayd. Abu al-Qasim ibn
Muhammad ibn al-Junavd
al-Khazzaz al-Qawariri al-
xxxvix, 90, 115, 610. 663,
665

justice 224.311.116-118. 579
668, 679

K

Kaaba xxxvix, xlc, 119-120
Abraham 8, 9
angel 13

Arabian religions, pre-
Islamic 52
bardku 92
Black Stone 108
Christianity and Islam 141
goddess 265
Hagar 281
hajj 282

Hallaj, al-Husayn ibn
Mansur al- 285
houses 312
idolatry 343
maqam 457
Mecca 465-468
paradise 546
prayer 557
qibla 568,569
Quraysh 574
Rabia al-Adawiyya 578
shirk 627
umra 691
Zamzam 718
kafir 108. 420-422. 603
Karbala xltiic. 422-424. 423
Ashura 67
horse 310

Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi
Talib 319
Husayniyya 320
Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 366
Muharram 498
Wahhabism 705
women 712
Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi
Talib 720.721

Karimov. Islam Abdughanievich

Kashmir 349. 357, 425-427.

535,542

Ketnal, Mustafa. See Ataturk,
Mustafa Kemal
Khadija bint Khuwaylid ibn
Asad 230, 292, 299, 427-
428, 491-493, 580
Khadir 428-430,483
Khan, Inayat 430. 637-638
kharaj 430=431
Khawarij xxxviiic, 431-432
fitna 241
heresy 297
Hijra 299
justice 417
kafir 421

Takfir wa'1-Hijra 657
Twelve-Imam Shiism 67 7
umnui 689

Khilafat Movement 432-433
Azad, Abu al-Kalam 79
India 351,356

Jamiyyat Ulama-i Hind 389
Jinnah, Muhammad Ali
401

Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 462
pan-Islamism 546
Khomeini, Ruhollah xlviic,
xlviiic, 363, 433-437. 434
authority 74
blasphemy 109
Constitutional Revolution
164

Daawa Party of Iraq 179
education 210
Fadlallah, Muhammad
Husayn 222
fiqh 240
Gulf Wars 273
Hizbullah 304
Iran 363

Iranian Revolution ( 1 978—
1979) 365-366
Iraq 370
Mahdi 448

Mohammad Rcza Pahlavi
478

Moses 484
mujahid 500
Mujahidin-i Khaiq 499
Muslim Brotherhood 508
Rushdie, Salman 594
Satanic Verses 606
Shariat i, Ali 622
Shiism 626
Sufism 641

Twelve-Imam Shiism 679
Usuli School 699
Koran. See Quran
Kulthum, Umm 145, 578
kuttab 207-208. 437-438.

634, 684

Kuwait 57. 153. 271,316.

534, 5-46

L

Latin America 439-440
law, international 355, 440-
441

law, Islamic. See fiqh; sharia
Lebanon xxvii, xlvc, xlvic,
xlviiic, 441=442
anti-Semitism 47
Arab-lsraeli conflicts 56
Australia 71
democracy 190
Fadlallah, Muhammad
Husayn 222-223

Haqqani. Muhammad
Nazim al- 289
Hizbullah 304=305
houses 312, 313
human rights 315
Iran 364
lslamism 376

Index 741

mujahid 499
PL O 544
al-Qaida 565
suicide 642

Libya xlvc, xlvic, xlviic, 443-
444, 583

literacy 157, 159, 4418, 444-
445, 650

M

mad rasa 446-447

Abd al-Qadir al-J ilani 4
Baghdad 84
Cairo 123
cemetery' 03
Deoband 192
education 208
C.hazali, Abu Hamid
al- 261

Hanafi Legal School 281
Hanbali Legal School 288
Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 339
idolatry 343-344
India 351
mufti 488
Sc ljuk dynasty 611
sermon 613
shaykh 622
student 634
ulama 683
university 696

Mahdi xlivc, 447-448, 44S
Antichrist 46
Barclwi, Sayyid Ahmad 92
faith 224

Fatimid dynasty 231
ghayba 260
Ghulam Ahmad 263
Haqqani. Muhammad
Nazim al- 290
hujja 313

Ibn Tumart, Muhammad
340-34 1

jihad movements 39 9
Mahdiyya movement 448
Muhammad al -Mahdi 49.7
mujahid 500
renewal and reform
movements 586
Safavid dynasty 598
Saudi Arabia 608
Sudan 636
Sufism 640
walaya 707

Mahdiyya movement 448-449

Majnun and Layla 44 9-450,
551

Malamati Sufis 450

Malaysia xlvic, 117-118, 184.
25G. 312, 450-453, 451

Malcolm X xlviic, 18, 453.

453-454. 522

Malik ibn Anas xxxvix,

454- 455
Deoband 192

Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad

333

Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
Maliki Legal School 455
Medina 420

Shafii, Muhammad ibn Idris
al- 616
sunna 645

Maliki Legal School xxv,

455— 456
abortion 7
customary law 126
divorce 200

Fez 236
fiqh 239
Granada 2o8
Gulf States 221
Hijra 299

Ibn Khaldun. Abd al-
Rahman 334
Ibn Rushd, Muhammad
336

Ibn Tumart, Muhammad
340

Libya 443
Malik ibn Anas 454
Sokoto Caliphate 630
sunna 645
Tunisia 672
West Africa 209
mamluk 456
maqam 457, 599
martyrdom xxvi, 457—460
Ali ibn Abi Talib 33
Ashura 67
death 186
houri 311

Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi
Talib 319
Husayniyya 321
Ibadiyya 32 3- 32 4
Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 366
Karbala 423
al-Qaida 564
shahada 619
Shiism 624
suicide 642

Twelve-Imam Shiism 677
Marx. Karl 160.621
Mary 22. 397. 460-461. 559-
560, 627, 632. 712
mathematics 1 16. 208. 461—
462, 569, 610

Mawdudi. Abu al-Ala xlvic.

Afghan mujahidin 16
Ghannoushi. Rashid
al- 259

lamaat-i Islami 388
kafir 422

lafsir 6 55

Tanzeem-e Islami 660-661
lawhid 666
ulama 685
mawlid 464 — 165
Mecca xxiii, xxv, xxix, xxxii,
xxxviic, xliiic. xlviic, 465-
469, 466
angel 43

Arabian religions, pre-
Islamic 52
Arafat 52
Bedouin 99
Black Stone 108
calendar 124
cities 150
Cordoba 168
Emigrants 213
ethics and morality 215
Fatiha 229
Five Pillars 243
funerary rituals 251
Hagar 281
hajj 281=283
Hanbali Legal School 288
Hashimitc dynasty 294,
295

Hijra 298.299
houses 312
Husayn ibn Ali 318
hypocrites 321,322
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 324
Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-
Din 326

Ibn Hanbal. Ahmad 330
Ibn Ishaq. Muhammad

333

Ibrahim ibn Adham 341
Id al-Adha 342
Jerusalem 391
Judaism and Islam 410
Kaaba 419=420
Malcolm X 454
mihrab 473
mosque 484
Muhammad 491-492
Night Journey and Ascent
528

Night of Destiny 529
pan-lslamism 545
prayer 557
qibla 568. 569
Quran 521
Quraysh 574, 525
Rabia al-Adawiyya 578
Saudi Arabia 606
travel 672
umra 690-691
Usama bin Ladin 697
Wahhabism 705
Yemen 716
Zamzam 718, 219
Ziyara 722

Medina xxiii, xxv, xxix, xxxi,
xliiic. 46£ 469.-4 7 1
Ansar 45

Arabian religions, pre-
Islamic 53
Bedouin 99
calendar 124
cities 150

Companions of the Prophet
162

Emigrants 213
Fatiha 229
Fez 236.237
Hijra 298,299
horse 310
houses 312-313
Husayn ibn Ali 318
hypocrites 321.322
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

Muhammad 324
Iraq 369
Jerusalem 391
Judaism and Islam 410
Malik ibn Anas 454
Maliki Legal School 455
mosque 484=486
Muhammad 493-495
Night of Destiny 529
pan-lslamism 545
People of the Book 548
qibla 569
Quran 5ZL 572
Ramadan 580
Saudi Arabia 606
Usama bin Ladin 697
Wahhabism 705
Ziyara 722-724
Mcrnissi, Fatima 103. 242.

315. 471

Mevlevi Sufi Order 193, 194,
471-473 .472. 593. 639
mihrab 347, 473, 473. 4M,

557, 568

minaret 13, 188. iZi 474-475,
484. 48Z

mmbar 347, 475-476, 484,

557

miracle 91-92. 329. 476-477.

707

modernization 5, 283. 297-298.

316. 7-1-0-213

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi xlvic,
478-479
Iran 363

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365-366
Khomeini, Ruhollah 435
Mujahidin-i Khalq 499
oil _532

Shariati, Ali 621
Twelve-Imam Shiism 680
Mohammedanism xxiv, 374,
477-478

moon 245, 479-480

'CssSD

742 Encyclopedia of Islam

Morocco xxv, xxix, xlc, xliic,
xlvc, xlvic, -#80, 480-481
Alawid dynasty 29
Almohad dynasty 36
Almoravid dynasty 37
Fez 236-237
Ibn Battuta 330
imam 348

Mcrnissi, Fatima 471
Moro National Liberation Front
481-482, 534, 553
Moses 482, 482-484
haraka 92
boat 110
covenant 170
fitna 242
Hijra 298

holy books 307, 308
Judaism and Islam 409,
410

Khadir 429
Muhammad 492
Night Journey and Ascent
529

prophets and prophethood
560

renewal and reform
movements 585
revelation 589
sunna 645
Torah 671
vizier 703

mosque ISO, 218, 232, 384,

451, 466, 484-486, 485, 539.
See also specific mosques, e g.:
Aqsa Mosque
bazaar 97
prayer 558
Mudejar 42,486-487
muezzin 13, 101, 474, 487
mufti 487-488

Abd al-Qadir al-J ilani 4
Australia 71
fatwa 233
fiqh 240

Husayni, Muhammad Amin
al- 317
Israel 382
shaykh 623

Mughal dynasty xxxii, xliic,
xliiic, xlivc, 488-490, 489
Akhar 27
Aurangzeb 69-70
Bangladesh 87
Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad 92
Chiragh Ali 139
Chishti Sufi Order 140
Dara Shikoh 183
Delhi 187m, 188
Delhi Sultanate 189
Ghalih, Mirza Asad Ali
Khan 258
ghazal 260
India 350,353-355

jizya 403
kafir 421

Persian language and
literature 551
tafsir 655
umma 689

Muhammad (prophet of Islam)
xxiii-xxvi, xxix, xxxi, xxxiv,
xxxviic, 490-496, 491
Abu Bakr 9
ahl al-bayt 23
Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi
Quhafa 25,26
Alexander the Great 31
Ali ibn Abi Talib 33
Allah 34
Ansar 45
Arafat 57
authority 73
autobiography 75
ay a 77

baqa and fan a 90
biography 102
birth control and family
planning 105
birth rites 106
Black Stone 108
blasphemy 109
Buraq, al- 118
calendar 124
caliph 125
caliphate 126
camel 1 28

children 136
Chiragh Ali 139
Chishti Sufi Order 139
circumcision 149
cities 150

comic strips and comic
books 160

Companions of the Prophet
162

constitutionalism 162
conversion 165
creation 171

crime and punishment 174
dar al-Islam and dar al -
harb 182
Dar ul-Arqam 184
death 186
dialogue 196
divorce 199
dog 201

Dome of the Rock 201
dreams 202
East Africa 206
education 208
Emigrants 213
ethics and morality 216
faith 223
Fatiha 229
Fatima 230

food and drink 246-248
Gabriel 254-255

genealogy 72f
Ghadir Khumm 257
Ghulam Ahmad 263-264
ghulat 264
goddess 265
Gospel 266

government, Islamic 266
hadith 278,280
Hagar 281
hajj 281,282
Haqqani, Muhammad
Nazim al- 289, 290
harem 292

Hashimite dynasty 294
heresy 296
Hijra 298-299
holidays 306
holy books 308
horse 310
houses 312-313
Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi
Talib 319

hypocrites 321,322
Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad
332-333

Ibn Kathir, lmad al-Din
333

Idris 345
i jmaa 345
Israel 380
Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
Jahiliyya 387
Jerusalem 391,394
Jesus 397
jihad 398
jinni 402
Joseph 408

Judaism and Islam 409-413
justice 416
kafir 420-422
Khadija bint Khuwaylid ibn
Asad 427-428
Libya 443
literacy 444-445
Mahdi 447
martyrdom 458
mawlid 464, 465
Mecca 465, 466
Medina 470
Mernissi, Fatima 471
minaret 474
minbar 475
miracle 476
Mohammedanism 477
moon 479
Moses 482-483
mosque 484

Naqshbandi Sufi Order 517
Night Journey and Ascent
528-529
OIC 535
pan-Islamism 545
pbuh 547-548
People of the Book 548

Perfect Man 549
prayer 557
prayer beads 558-559
prophets and prophethood
559-561

Qadiri Sufi Order 563
qibla 569
Quran 570-573
Quraysh 574, 575
Rahman, Fazlur 579
Ramadan 580
Rashid Rida, Muhammad
581

renewal and reform
movements 585-586
revelation 589-591
Rifai Sufi Order 592
Rushdie, Salman 594
Satanic Verses 605-606
sermon 612

Shafii, Muhammad ibn Idris
al- 616
shahada 618
sharia 620
shaykh 622
Shiism 623, 624
shirk 627
slaver)' 630
Sokoto Caliphate 630
suicide 642
sunna 644-646
Syria 647
tafsir 652
tariqa 663
travel 672
ulama 683

Umar ibn al-Khaltab 685
Umar Tal 686
umma 688, 689
veil 702
walaya 707
women 711, 712
Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi
Talib 720
Ziyara 722-724
Muhammad, Elijah

African Americans, Islam
among 17, 18
Daoud Ahmed 182
Farrakhan, Louis 227
Malcolm X 453-454
Nation of Islam 520-524
prophets and prophethood
561

United States 694
Muhammad Ali dynasty 496,
496-497

Muhammad al-Mahdi 497
Muhammad ibn Saud 556, 705
Muharram 67, 235. 498
mujahid 16-17,487,498-499,
564, 698

Mujahidin-i Khalq 161, 366,
499-500

Index 743

mujtahid 179, 346-347. 434.

500-501
mullah 501
Mullah Sadra 501,555
murid 502, 619, 637. 663
Mu rich Sufi Order 502-503
Murjia 503, 668
murshid 503-504. 506
music 504-505 ,505
Ajmer 26
arabesque 50
Chishli Sufi Order 140

ghaztil 260
Khan, Inayat 430
Naiion of Islam 521
Nizam al-Din Awliya 530
qawwali 567-568
Sufi Movement 637
Sufi Order International
637

Umm Kullhoum 690
Muslim Brotherhood xlvc, xlvic,
5.0.6=508

Abduh, Muhammad o
anti-Semitism 47
Arab-Israeli conflicts 56
Arafat, Yasir 58
Baath Party 82
Banna, Hasan al- 88-89
civil society 153
colonialism 157
democracy 191
dhimmi 195
Egypt 212
Ghannoushi, Rashid
al- 259

Ghazali. Zaynab al- 262
Gulf States 221
Gulf Wars 275
Hamas 285-286
Hizb al-Tahrir al-lslami
303

Islamism 376
Jahiliyya 388
jizya 403
Jordan 406

Nasir, Jamal Abd al- 518
Qutb, Sayyid 576-577
renewal and reform
movements 588
Sadat, Muhammad Anwar
al- 597
Salafism 602
Shaarawi, Muhammad al-
614-615
Sudan 636
sunna 646
lafsir 655

Takfir wal-Hijra 657
Tunisia 673
Usama bin Ladin 698
Wahhabism 706
Muslim Public Affairs Council
(MPAC) 169, 508=509

Muslim Students Association
(MSA) 130,236,375, 509-
511,510

Muslim World League xlvic, 57,
511, 546, 595, 608, 689
Mutazili School xxxvix. 511 —

514

anthropomorphism 45
Ashari School 66
fate 229

Hasan al-Basri, al- 294

Ibadiyya 323

Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad

miracle 476
philosophy 555
Shiism 626
theology 668
Twelve-Imam Shiism 679
muwahhidun. See Wahhabism

N

names of God 35.139-140,

372, 515-517. 5161. 558
Naqshbandi Sufi Order 517-518
Afghanistan 15
Bukhara 117
dialogue 197
Gulen, Fethullah 268
Haqqani, Muhammad
Nazim al- 289-290
Malamati Sufis 450
renewal and reform
movements 588
Shamil 619

Sirhindi, Ahmad 628-629
Sufism 640

Nasir. Jamal Abd al- xlvic.
xlviic. 518-519
Arab League 57
Azhar. al- 80
comic strips and comic-
books 159
Egypt 212

Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al
Saud 234

Ghazali, Zaynab al- 262
Husayn, Saddam 316
Libya 444
Literacy 445
Moses 484

Muhammad Ali dynasty
42Z

Muslim Brotherhood 506,
507

OIC 535
PLO 544
al-Qaida 564. 565
Qutb, Sayyid 576
renewal and reform
movements 588
Sadat. Muhammad Anwar
al- 592

Shaarawi. Muhammad
al- 614

Takfir wal-Hijra 657
Nasr, Scyyed Hossein 519-520,
555

Nasser, Gamal Abdel. Sec Nasir.
Jamal Abd al-

Nation of Islam xlviic, 520-
524

African Americans, Islam
among L7, 18
anti-Semitism 47
Bilal 102
Canada 130
Daoud Ahmed 182
Farrakhan, Louis 226=227
Malcolm X 453=454
prophets and prophclhood
561

United States 694
Navruz 306, 524. 524-526
Neoplatonism 89-90, 116, 173,
225, 338-339, 378. 631
Nepal 526-527
New Testament 254, 265-266.

307-309. 413. 482, 589, 603
New Zealand 527-528
Night Journey and Ascent

528- 529
angel 43

Aqsa Mosque 49

Bistami, Abu Yazid al- 107

Buraq, al- 118

dreams 203

Europe 219

holidays 306

horse 310

Idris 345

Israel 381

Jerusalem 391,394

Moses 483

Muhammad 492

paradise 547

revelation 590

tafsir 652

Night of Destiny 254, 306. 308.

529- 530, 572, 580, 632
9/11. See September 1_L 3001

terrorist attacks
Nizam al-Din Awliya xlic, 188.

530- 531, 552

O

October War. See Arab-lsraeli
War (1973)
oil xlvc. 532-533

Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud 2
Baghdad 84

Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al
Saud 234

Gulf Stales 272-273
Gulf Wars 274.277
Iran 363

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365
Iraq 367,370.371
Islam 374
kafir 422
Libya 444

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
478

OPEC 533.-534
Orientalism 537
al-Qaida 565
Salafism 602
Saudi Arabia 606
Wahhabism 706
Operation Iraqi Freedom, See
Gulf War (Iraq War, 2003- )
Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC)
532-533, 513-534, 607
Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC) xlviic,
534-535, 546. 608, 689, 714
Orientalism 536-538
colonialism 158
Fyzce, Asaf Ali Asghar 253
hadith 280
India 355
Islam 374
Jahiliyya 387
Jamaat-i Islami 388
Jerusalem 394
jihad 397=399
jihad movements 399
jinni 492

John the Baptist 404
Joseph 498

Judaism and Islam 409-
413

Judgment Day 413
justice 416-417
literacy 444
names of God 515
Nasr. Seyycd Hossein 519
Naiion of Islam 520. 523
Navruz 525

Night Journey and Ascent
528-529

Night of Destiny 529
Nizam al-Din Awliya 530
qibla 569
Quraysh 575
Rahman, Fazlur 579
Ramadan 580
Rashid Rida. Muhammad
582

revelation 589-590
Salafism 601
Satan 603=605
Satanic Verses 605-606
ulama 683
umm a 688
United States 693
Usuli School 699
Uthman ibn Affan 700

744 Encyclopedia of Islam

Orientalism (continued)
veil 1 Q2
vizier 703
women 7 1 1
Yemen 716

Oslo Accords 38, 383. 538,
543-545

Ottoman Empire xxix, xliic,
xlivc, 538-540, 539
Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal
68-69

Azhar, al- 80
Baghdad 84
Bosnia and Herzegovena
114

Cairo 123
caliphate 126
Chiragh Ali 139
colonialism 156
constitutionalism 163
Europe 218
food and drink 249
Funj Sultanate 232
Hanbali Legal School 288
Husayn ibn Ali 318
Iqbal, Muhammad 362
Iraq 369
Islam 373
Israel 381,382
Istanbul 384
Janissary 390
Jerusalem 396
Jordan 405-406
Judaism and Islam 412
Latin America 439
Lebanon 441
Libya 443
mad rasa 446-447
minaret 474-475
mufti 488
music 504
Palestine 543
pan-Islamism 545
Qadiri Sufi Order 563-564
Saudi Arabia 607
Sephardic Jews 612
student 634
Syria 648
Tanzimat 661-662
umma 689
Westernization 111)

Yemen 716

P

Pakistan xxv, xxvii. xlvic,
541-542

Afghan mujahidin 16, L7
Ahmadiyya 24
Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid
24

AIML 35,36
alphabet 39
Awami League 76

Bangladesh 88
birth control and family
planning 104
Buddhism and Islam 116
cinema 147
Gandhi, Mohandas
Karamchand 256
Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin 296
Hijra 299
Hinduism and Islam
300-302
holidays 306
India 349,350,356-358
Iqbal, Muhammad 361-
362

Islam ism 376
lamaat-i Islami 388
Jamiyyat LJlama-i Islam
389-390

Jinnah, Muhammad Ali 401
Kashmir 425-427
madrasa 447
Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 463
minaret 475
Persian language and
literature 550
purdah 561
al-Qaida 564
renewal and reform
movements 587, 588
Taliban 657-659
World Muslim Congress
714

Palestine 542-543
Arafat. Yasir 58
birth rites 106
democracy 190
dialogue 197
Dome of the Rock 202
Hashimite dynasty 293
houses 312

Husayni, Muhammad Amin
al- 317-318
Israel 379.382
Judaism and Islam 413
mujahid 499
PLO 544
al-Qaida 363

Palestine Liberation

Organization (PLO) xlviiic,
544-545
Arafat, Yasir 58
fidai 238
Hamas 286
Israel 382,383
Jordan 407
Lebanon 442
Libya 444

Muslim Brotherhood 508
Oslo Accords 538
Palestine 543
Syria 647

pan-Islamism 178. 351. 432,
433. 511. 545-546, 592, 680

paradise xxix, 546-547
afterlife 19
agriculture 22
ahl ul -bay t 23
angel 43
architecture 60
baqa and Jana 90
covenant 170
death 186
eschatology 214
ethics and morality 213
Fatima 230
Gabriel 254
houri 310-311
houses 313
Idris 344
Islam 372
Judgment Day 413
martyrdom 458
Night Journey and Ascent
529

pbuh 547
Satan 603-604
soul and spirit 632
suicide 642
umra 691
pbuh 547-548
Pentagon attack (9/1 1/2001).
See September 2001 ,
terrorist attacks
People of the Book 548-549
Christianity and Islam
141

haram 291

holy books 308, 309

Islam 373

Jerusalem 394

Judaism and Islam 410

kafir 421

Quran 571.572

shirk 627

tawhid 665

Torah 671

umma 688

Perfect Man 35. 326, 435, 495,
549

Persian Gulf War (1990-1991).

Sec Gulf War (1990-1991)
Persian language and literature
39. 90. 91. 103, 353, 426.
549-552

petroleum. Sec oil

Philippines 156-157,481-482,
552-553, 566
philosophy 553-555

Arkoun. Muhammad 61
ethics and morality 215
Farabi, Abu Nasr al- 224-
226

haqiqa 288-289
Ibn Hanbal. Ahmad 330-
331

Ibn Khaldun, Abd al-
Rahman 335

Ibn Rushd, Muhammad
336-338

Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn
338-339

Judgment Day 413
justice 417
madrasa 446

Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 462
Mutazili School 511
Nasr, Seyyed Hosscin 519
Rahman, Fazlur 579
science 609
soul and spirit 631
Pillars of Islam. Sec Five Pillars
Plato 417. 632
poetry

African languages and
literatures 18-19
Arabic language and
literature 53
Cordoba 1 68
education 207
C.halib, Mirza Asad Ali
Khan 258
ghazal 260
Ibn al-Farid, Abu Hafs
Umar 328-329
Iqbal, Muhammad 361 —
362

Nizam al-Din Awliya 530
Rumi, Jalal al-Din 593-594
Simurgh 628
Sufism 641
Yunus Emrc 717
Political Action Committee
of Southern California.

Sec Muslim Public Affairs
Council

politics and Islam 88-89, 285-
286. 292, 556-557
prayer xxiii, 243, 557. 557-558
adhan 12-13
Allah 34
asceticism 65
Australia 71
Bamba, Ahmadu 86
birth rites 106
blood 110
daawa 177
dietary laws 199
Fatiha 229-230
Five Pillars 242
hisba 303
holidays 306
holy books 308
Id al-Adha 342
Id al-Fitr 343
imam 347
intercession 360
Kaaba 419
maqam 457
Mecca 468
mihrab 473
mosque 484

Index 7 45

muezzin 4SZ
Night of Destiny 529
if i Mu 568-569
Ramadan 580
sermon 612
shahada 618
sunna 645
urn mu 688
ziyara 722

prayer beads 515. 558-559
prophets and prophethood xxiv,
559-561, 560
Abraham 8
Allah 3_4

Baqli, Ruzbihan 91
baraka 91=92
creation 171
dhikr 193
dreams 202

Ghulam Ahmad 263-264
holy books 308
hujja 313
Idris 344-345
Khadija bint Khuwaylid ibn
Asad 428
Khadir 429
Muhammad 490-495
purdah 561-562

Q

Qadiri Sufi Order 563-564
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani 4
Algeria 32
Dara Shikoh 183
Hanbali Legal School 288
Muridi Sufi Order 502
Rifai Sufi Order 592
Sufism 640
Usman Dan Fodio 700
al-Qaida xxii, xxvii, xlviiic.
564-567
Afghanistan lo
Arab-Israeli conflicts 56
Cairo 122
Europe 220
Gulf Wars 2Z7
Hekinatyar, Gulbuddin
296

Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 325
Iraq 371
Islam 375
Islamism 376
jihad movements 399
Orientalism 537
Pakistan 542
renewal and reform
movements 588
Salafism 602
Saudi Arabia 608
suicide 641
Taliban 658

Twelve-Imam Shiism 681

Usama bin Ladin 697-698
Wahhabism 706
Yemen 716

Qajar dynasty xlvc, 164, 567,
591

qawwali 26, 140. 567-568
qibla 568-569
Quran xxiii-xxvi. 307, 570,
570-574
abortion Z
Abraham 9
adab 11

Adam and Eve 12
adulter)' LL 14
afterlife 19
agriculture 22
Ahmad Khan, (Sir) Sayyid
25

Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi
Quhafa 26

Alexander the Great 30
Allah 34. 35
almsgiving 38
alphabet 39, 40
angel 42.43
animals 43-44
anthropomorphism 45, 46
apostasy 48
Arabic language and
literature 53
Arafat 57

Arkoun, Muhammad 62
Ashari School 66
authority 73
aya 12

baqa and fana 90
baraka 9 1 -9 2
basmala 94
balin 94-95
Bedouin 98
birth control and family
planning 104
blasphemy 108
blood 109-1 10
boat 110

books and bookmaking
113

calendar 125
camel 1 28
children 136
Chiragh Ali 139
Christianity and Islam
141-142

circumcision 149
cities 150
coffee 155
colonialism 157
comic strips and comic
books 160

Companions of the Prophet
162

conversion 165
covenant 170
creation 171-173

crime and punishment 1 74

customary law 1 76

daawa HI

Dar ul-Arqam 184

David 185

death 185=186

dhikr 193

dietary laws 198

divorce 199

dog 20i

Dome of the Rock 202
dreams 202. 203
education 207
Emigrants 213
eschatology 214
ethics and morality

evil eye 22 1
faith 223
fasting 227
fate 228
Fatiha 229-230
Fatima 231
fatwa 233
fidai 237
fiqh 238,239
Fire 240
fitna 242
Five Pillars 242
folklore 245
food and drink 246
funerary rituals 251
Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar
253

Gabriel 254
garden 256
C.hadir Khumm 257
Ghannoushi. Rashid
al- 258

Gospel 265=266
Gulcn, Fclhullah 268
hadith 278=280
hajj 281
halal 284

Hanafi Legal School 287
Hanbali Legal School 288
haram 290-291
hijab 297
Hijra 299
hisba 302-303
Hizbullah 304
holidays 306
holy books 307-309
horse 310
houri 310
houses 312
hujja 313
human rights 314
hypocrites 322
Ibadiyya 323
Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-
Hasan Ali 328
Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad
ibn Said 331=332

Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad 333
Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din

333-334

Ibn Muqla, Abu Ali
Muhammad 335, 336
Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn
338

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 339
Ibn Tumart, Muhammad
340

idolatry 343-344
Idris 344
ijmaa 345
ijtihad 346
intercession 360
Islam 372. 174
Ismaili Shiism 377
Israel 380 =381
Jahiliyya 387
Jamaat-i Islami 388
Jerusalem 394
jihad 397-399
jihad movements 399
jinni 402

John the Baptist 404
Joseph 408

Judaism and Islam 409=413
Judgment Day 413
justice 416-417
Kaaba 419
kafir 420=422
Khadija bin! Khuwaylid ihn
Asad 428
kutlab 437
literacy 444
maqam 437
martyrdom 458
Mar>' 460
Mecca 465, 466
Medina 470
Mernissi, Fatima 471
miracle 476
Mohammedanism 477
moon 479
Moses 482,483
MPAC 509
Mudejar 486
mufti 487

Muhammad 490-495
Murjia 503
music 504
Mutazili School 512
names of God 515
Nasr, Scyyed Hossein 519
Nation of Islam 520, 523
Navruz 525

Night Journey and Ascent
528-529

Night of Destiny 529
Nizam al-Din Awliya 530
paradise 546, 547
pbuh 547

People of the Book 548, 549

746 Encyclopedia of Islam

Quran (continued)
prayer 557
prayer beads 558
prophets and prophethood

559

purdah 562
qibla 569
Quraysh 5 15
Rahman, Fazlur 5Z9
Ramadan 580
Rashid Rida, Muhammad
582

renewal and reform
movements 585-587
revelation 589-590
Salafism 601
Satan 603-605
Satanic Verses 605-606
Shaarawi, Huda al- 613
Shafii, Muhammad ibn Idris
al- 617

Shafii Legal School 617
shahada 618
sharia 620
shirk 627
slavery 629-630
soul and spirit 631=633
student 634
suicide 641,642
sunna 644-646
Sunnism 646
tafsir 652-656
taqwa 662
terrorism 667
Torah 671
ulama 683
umma 688
United States 693
Usuli School 699
Uthman ibn Affan 700
veil Z02
vizier 703
Yemen 716
Quraysh xxix, xxxviic,

574-575
Abu Bakr 9
Bedouin 98
Black Stone 108
Emigrants 213
goddess 265

Kaaba 420

Khadija bint Khuwaylid ibn
Asad 42Z
Khawarij 432
Mecca 467
Muhammad 491-494
Satanic Verses 605
Shiism 624

Umar ibn al-Khattab 685
Umayyad Caliphate 687
Uthman ibn Affan 700
Qutb, Sayyid xlviic, 576-577
Afghan mujahidin 16
Egypt 212

Ghannoushi, Rashid
al- 259

Ghazali, Zaynab al- 262
Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin 296
Islam 3Z5
Jahiliyya 387-388
jihad 398
justice 418
kafir 422
Khadir 430

Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 464
Moses 484
mujahid 498

Muslim Brotherhood 507.
508

Nasir. Jamal Abd al- 518
philosophy 555
al-Qaida 564. 565
renewal and reform
movements 588
tafsir 655
tawhid 666
ulama 685
Usama bin Ladin 698

R

Rabia al-Adawiyya 294, 341.
426. 528=529

Rahman. Fazlur xlviiic. 579-
580. 656

Ramadan 580=581
almsgiving 38
asceticism 65
Ashura 67
calendar 124
cemetery 133
dietary' laws 199
fasting 22Z
Five Pillars 243
food and drink 248
haram 290
holidays 305=306
Id al-Filr 342-343
Judaism and Islam 411
moon 479
Night of Destiny 529
umra 691
women 212

Rashid Rida. Muhammad xlvc,

tL 552. 581=582, 600. 655,
689

Rcconquista 36, 3 L 142-143.
167. 236, 455, 583

Refah Partisi (RP) 268, 582-
583. 675

refugees 583=585

Afghanistan 16

Cairo 120
Canada 130
cinema 147
Europe 219
Gulf Wars 276
Iraq 371
Jordan 406

Palestine 543
Sy ria 647, 650

renewal and reform movements
585-589

Banna. Hasan al- 88-89

Bumiputra 118

Hanbali Legal School 288

Hijra 299-300

India 350

saint 599

Salafism 601

Sufism 640

sunna 646

Tablighi Jamaat 651

Taliban 657-659

Tanzeem-e Islami 660-661

tanqa 663-664

tawhid 665

theology 667-670

umma 689

Westernization 710=7-11
Yemen 715
revelation 589-591
Reza Khan. See Rcza Shah
Pahlavi

Rcza Puhlavi. Muhammad. See
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Rcza Shah Pahlavi xlv, xlvic,
363,435,478. 567, 591-592
Rifai Sufi Order 193, 592-593
Rumi. Jalal al-Din xlic, 593.
593=594
dog 201

Haqqani, Muhammad
Nazim al- 289
Joseph 408
Mevlevi Sufi Order
471-472
Moses 483
mullah 501
Persian language and
literature 551
Satan 604
Seljuk dynasty 611
soul and spirit 633
Sufism 641

Rushdie, Salman xlviiic, 48,
109. 495. 537, 594-596,
605-606

s

Sacred Mosque. Sec Grand
Mosque (Mecca)

Sadat, Muhammad Anwar al-
xxii, xlviic. 597=598
Abd al-Rahman, Umar 4
Camp David accords
128-129
Egypt 212

Ghazali, Zaynab al- 263
Ibn Tavmiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 340
Jahiliyya 388
jihad movements 399

kafir 422
Khawarij 432
Moses 484

Muslim Brotherhood 507.
508

Nasir, Jamal Abd al- 519
al-Qaida 564
Qutb, Sayyid 576
renewal and reform
movements 598
Shaarawi, Muhammad
al- 615

Safavid dynasty xliic, xliiic,
598

Baghdad 84
Central Asia and the
Caucasus 134
Gulf Wars 2Z7
Husayniyya 320
Iran 362
mullah 501
Mullah Sadra 501
Shiism 626
Usuli School 699
saint xxvi, 598-600. 599
Salad in xlic. 600=604
Aqsa Mosque 49
Cairo 123

comic strips and comic-
books 159
Crusades 175
Damascus 181
Dome of the Rock 202
Egypt 211
Fatimid dynasty 233
Israel 381
Jerusalem 395
Salafism 601-603

Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi 3
democracy 191
dreams 203
miracle 476, 477
saint 600
soul and spirit 633
Wahhabism 706
Sassanian dynasty 53,291,550
Satan 603=605

Adam and Eve 12

angel 43

animals 44

fitna 242

Hagar 281

horse 310

jinni 402

kafir 421

paradise 546

Satanic Verses 605-606

shavkh 622

Satanic Verses 343, 605-606
Saudi Arabia xlvc, 6 0 6 - 6 0 8
Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud 2=3
Abou El Fadl. Khaled 8
Afghan mujahidin 16
Arab League 57
Bedouin 98, 99

Index 747

birth control and family
planning 104
democracy 1 90
Favsal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al
Saud 233-234
flag 244
hajj 283

Hanbali Legal School 288
Hashimite dynasty 293
hisba 303
holidays 306
horse 310
Husayn ibn Alt 318
Husayniyya 321
Ibn Abd al-\Vahhab,
Muhammad 324-323
Mecca 468
Medina 469

Muslim Brotherhood 506,
508

Muslim World League 51 1
oil 532
OPEC 534
politics and Islam 556
al-Qaida 564, 565
tawhid 665
Wahhabism Z04=706
Zamzam Z19
ziyara 724

sayyul 83, 92-93, 530, 609. 716
science 1 1 6. 208. 519, 609-610
Second Gulf War (2003- ). See
Gulf War (Iraq War. 2003- )
secularism 610=611
Baath Party 81
Ghannoushi, Rashid al- 259
human rights 323
Islam 374
kafir 422

People of the Book 549
renewal and reform
movements 585
Salafism 601
Turkey 675

Seljuk dynasty 61 1 , 717
Sephardic Jews 42, 381. 540.

611-612

September LL 2001, terrorist
attacks

Abou El Fadl, Khaled 8
Afghanistan L6
almsgiving 39
Arafat, Yasir 58
CA1R 169
dialogue 197
Europe 220
Gulen, Fethullah 269
Gulf Wars 276
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 325
Islam 315

jihad movements 399
Karimov, Islam
Abdughanievich 425
MSA 510

mujahid 499
Orientalism 537
al-Qaida 564. 565
Ramadan 581
refugees 584
Saudi Arabia 608
suicide 641.642
United States 691, 695
Usama bin Ladin 698
sermon 347, 528, 61 2-613 . 614
Seven-Imam Shiism see Ismaili
Shiism

Shaarawi, Huda 613-614
Shaarawi. Muhammad al-
614 = 615

Shadhili Sufi Order 615-616
Shafii, Muhammad ibn Idris
al- xxxvix, 101. 123,239,

616- 617.617, 645

Shafii Legal School xxv. xxxvix,

617- 618
Cairo 120
fiqh 1 39

Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din 333
India 350,359
Israel 381
Malaysia 451
Maliki Legal School 455
Philippines 553
Shiism 626
sunna 645
theology 669
Shah. Idries 618
shahada xxiii, 618-619
shame. See honor and shame
Shamil 135, 588.619-620
sharia xxiii, xxv. xxvi, 620-
62 1 . See also Jar aUlslam and
ilar al-harb
abortion 7
adultery L3
Akhbari School 27
almsgiving 38
apostasy 48
Aurangzcb 70
Bangladesh 87-88
Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad 93
bus mal a 94
blood 109
caliphate 126
children 136
Chiragh Ali 139
circumcision 149
colonialism 157
constitutionalism 163
ilar al-Islam and ilar al-harb
182

dog 201
Druze 203
education 208
Egypt 211

ethics and morality 216
fatwa 233

Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar

government, Islamic 266
Hamas 286

Hanbali Legal School 288
haqiqa 289
hisba 303

Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami 304
holy books 307
human rights 314
Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 340
ijmaa 345
ijtihail 347
Indonesia 358
Iran 364
Islam 373
Islainism 376
Jamaat-i Islami 388
Jamiyyat Llainari Islam 390
kafir 422
mufti 487. 488
Mughal dynasty 489
mujahul 500

Muslim World League 51 1
Naqshbandi Sufi Order 517
People of the Book 548
al-Qaida 565
Quran 572
renewal and reform
movements 586
Rushdie, Salman 595
Salafism 601
Saudi Arabia 607. 608
shahada 619
Shiism 624
Sirhindi, Ahmad 629
Sokoto Caliphate 630
Sudan 636
sultan 643

Tanzeem-e Islami 661
taqwa 662
lariqa 663

Twelve-Imam Shiism 681
ulama 683
Wahhabism 705, 706
Yemen 716

Shariati, Ali xlviic. 103. 231.

321, 621-622, 666. 680

shaykh xxvi, 622-623

Shiism xxv-xxvi, xxxi, xlviiic.

62.3-627, 625m
Afghanistan 15
Aga Khan 20
ahl al-bayt 23
Aisha bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi
Quhafa 26
Akbar 27
Alawi 28

Ali ibn Abi Talib 33-34
alphabet 40
angel 43
Antichrist 46
Ashura 67
Assassins 68
authority 73
ayatollah 78

Babism 82=83
Baghdad 84
Bahai Faith 85
basmala 94
balm 94-95
covenant 170
daami 178
Daawa Party of Iraq
179-180
democracy 190
Fadlallah, Muhammad
Husayn 222-223
faith 224
fate 229
Fatima 230-231
Fatimid dynasty 231
feasting 235
fitna 242
hadilh 279

Hanbali Legal School 288
heresy 297
Hizbullah 305
holidays 306
houses 313
hujja 313-314
Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi
Talib 319

Husayniyya 320,321
Ibadiyya 323
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 324, 325
Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad
ibn Said 332
ijmaa 346
imam 348
India 350
Iran 363

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365
Iraq 369-371
Ismaili Shiism 377
Jaafar al-Sadiq 387
Karbala 422-424
Khomeini, Ruhollah 433_,
435

Lebanon 442
Mahdi 447=448
Malaysia 451
martyrdom 458, 459
Mary 460

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
478

Moses 483
mosque 486
MSA 510
mufti 487
Muhammad 494
Muhammad al-Mahdi 497
Muharram 498
mujahid 500

Mujahidin-i Khalq 499, 500
Mullah Sadra 501
pan-Islamism 545
prophets and prophethood
560

748 Encyclopedia of Islam

Shiism (continued)

renewal and reform
movements 586
Safavid dynasty 598
Salafism 602
Seljuk dynasty 611
suicide 642
sultan 643
Sunnism 646, 647
la fair 652-656
Tamerlane 660
theology 668, 669
Twelve-Imam Shiism 676,
627

Umayyad Caliphate 687
United States 692
Wahhabism 704. 705
walaya 707
women 712
Zaydi Shiism 719-720
Zaynab hint Ali ibn Abi
Talih 720,721
ziyara 723-724

Shirazi, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim
al-Qawami al-. see Mullah
Sadra

shirk 627-628. See also idolatry
Simurgh 551,628,633
Sirhindi, Ahmad xliic, 517.

628-629, 640, 684
Six-Day War (1967). See Arab-
Isracli war (1967)
slavery 101.292, 390,439.

456, 629-630, 694
Sokoto Caliphate xliiic, 630-631
soul and spirit 89-90, 631-633
Soviet Union

Afghanistan 15
Afghan mujahidin Id
A rab-Isracli conflicts 56
Armenians 63
Bukhara 117
Central Asia and the
Caucasus 134=135
Chechnya 135
communism 160
Faysal ibn Ahd al-Aziz Al
Saud 234

Hckmatyar, Gulbuddin 296

Husayn, Saddam 316

Iran 363

Israel 381,382

Pakistan 542

al-Qaida 564, 565

Syria 649

student 634 See also education
Subud 635

Sudan xliiic, xlivc, 635-637
Ansar 45

Funj Sultanate 252
Mahdiyya movement 448
mujahid 498
politics and Islam 556
al-Qaida 565

Sufi Movement 37. 637. 638
Sufi Order International 637.

637-639, 638
Sufism xxvi, xxxii, xlic,
639-641
Afghanistan 15
Ah mad ivy a 24
Ajmer 26
Alawi 28
Algeria 32
Ali ibn Abi Talib 34
alphabet 40
angel 43
asceticism 66
authority Z4
Bamba, Ahmadu 86
Bangladesh 87
baqa and {ana 89-90
Baqli. Ruzbihan *11
batin 95

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Fellowship 96
Bektashi Sufi Order
99=100

biography 103
Bistami, Abu Yazid al- 107
Central Asia and the
Caucasus 134
conversion 165
Dar ul-Arqam 184
Delhi Sultanate 189
dervish 192-193
dhikr 193=194
dialogue 197
dietary laws 199
dreams 203
Ghazali, Abu Hamid
al- 261
ghulat 264
hadilh 27 9-280
hal 283-284
Hallaj, al-Husayn ibn
Mansur al- 285
Hanbali Legal School 288
haquja 289
Haqqani. Muhammad
Nazim al- 28 9- 2 9 0
Hasan al-Basri. al- 294
houri 311
Husayniyya 320
Ibn al-Arabi. Muhyi al-Din
326=327

Ibn al-Farid, Ahu Hafs
Umar 328-329
Ihn Idris, Ahmad 332
Ibn Taymiyya. Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 339-340
Ibrahim ibn Adham 341
India 350-351,353.356.
359

Iraq 369

Ismaili Shiism 379
Kashmir 425
Malamati Sufis 450

Malaysia 451
martyrdom 458
Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 462
mu »vlid 464. 465
Mecca 467,468
Mcvlevi Sufi Order
471-472
miracle 476
Morocco 481
Moses 483
Mullah Sadra 501
murid 502

Muridi Sufi Order 502
mursliid 503-504
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 519
Perfect Man 549
Persian language and
literature 551
philosophy 554
qawwah 567-568
Quraysh 575
saint 599
Salafism 601-602
Satanic Verses 605
Shadhih Sufi Order
615-616
Shah. Idries 618
shaykh 622

Sirhindi. Ahmad 628-629
Sufi Order International
637-638
Syria 648
tariqa 663
tawhid 665
lekkc 666
theology 669
Twelve-Imam Shiism 679
United States ('04
wali 707
West Africa 7D9
Zaydi Shiism 720
Ziyara 722

suicide 626-627,641-643
sultan 643-644
sunna xxv, xxvi, 644-646
Sunnism xxv. xxvi, xxxi,
646-647

Abbasid Caliphate 1
Afghanistan 15
African Americans. Islam
among L8
Ahinadiyya 24
Akbar 27
Algeria 31
Ali ibn Abi Talib 33
angel 43
Arafat. Yasir 58
Ashari School 66, 67
Ashura 67
Assassins 68

Australia 71
Azhar, al- 79
Bangladesh 86
basmala 94

balm 94-95
Berber 100
btdaa L0I
Cairo 110
Daoud Ahmed LSI
divorce 200
Egypt 210
fitna 242
Gulf States 173
hadith 279
Hanafi Legal School
286-287

Hanbali Legal School 288
heresy 297
Ibadiyya 323
Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad
330=331

Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad

333

Ihn Kathir, Imad al-Din
333

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 340
imam 348
India 350, 352
intercession 361
Iraq 367,369-371
Ismaili Shiism 378
Lebanon 442
Mahdi 447-448
Malay sia 4 5 1 . 4 L2
Maliki Legal School 455
martyrdom 457. 459
Mary 460
Medina 470
Morocco 481
MSA 509
mufti 487

Mughal dynasty 488, 489
mujahid 500
Murjia 503

Muslim World League 51 1
Pakistan 54J
Philippines 553
politics and Islam 556
purdah 562
renewal and reform
movements 586
Seljuk dynasty 611
Shafii Legal School 617
sharia 620
Shiism 623. 624. 626
Sudan 636
Syria 647
tafsir 653

Tanzeem-e Islami 661
theology 668
Tunisia 672

Twelve-Imam Shiism 676,
680

ulama 683

Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi
Talib 721
ziyara 724

Index 749

Syria xxxi, xxxviic, xlic, xlvc,
xlvic, xlviic, 647-650
Arabian religions, pre-
Islamic 53

Arab-lsraeli conflicts 56
Baath Party 81-62
Bilal 101
Damascus 180
Hanbali Legal School 288
Haqqani, Muhammad
Nazim al- 289
Harun al- Rashid 293
Hash i mite dynasty 295
Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami

303

Hizbullah 305
houses 312
human rights 315
Ihn Kathir, Imad al-Din

333-334

Ismaili Shiism 377
Israel 381
Jerusalem 392
Muslim Brotherhood 508

T

Tablighi Jamaat / 78, 351^399,
646, 651-652, 689
tafsir 652-656

Takfir wa’l -Hijra 597. 656-657
Taliban xlviiic. 657-659,
658-659
Afghanistan 16
Afghan mujahidin 16, 17
burqa 119
Deoband L92
ilhimmi 195

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin 296

hisba 303

music 505

oil 533

Pakistan 542

al-Qaida 565

Salafism 602

Twelve-Imam Shiism 681

ulama 685

Tamerlane xliic, 1 17. 189. 334.

353, 369. 659-660
Tanzeem-e-Islami 660-661
Tanzimat 14. 545. 612. 661-
662, 676

taqwa 223, 662-663
tariqa xxvi, 663-664
tawhid 664-666
tt’kke 472. 666-667
terrorism xxii, xxvi-xxvii, 6.67
Abou El Fadl, Khaled 8
Central Asia and the
Caucasus 135
Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami

304

Islam 375
Libya 444

OIC 535

politics and Islam 556-557
al-Qaida 564-566
Saudi Arabia 608
suicide 643
theology 662=670
Timbuktu 670-671,709
Torah 671-672
covenant 170
holy books 307-309
Idris 345
Israel 380

John the Baptist 404
Judaism and Islam 409-412
kafir 421
Moses 482, 483
Night of Destiny 529
People of the Book 548
prophets and prophelhood
559

Quran 570
revelation 589
Satan 603
sunna 645
travel 110. 672
Tunisia xlvic. 672-674, 721
Turkey xxv, xxvii, xlvc,
674-675
Alawi 28
alphabet 39
archaeology 60
Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal
68-69

Australia 71
Bahai Faith 85
Basmachi 93-94
Bektashi Sufi Order 99
civil society 153
Haqqani, Muhammad
Nazim al- 289
hijab 297
holidays 306
houses 312
Iran 363

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365
Istanbul 383
madrasa 447
pan-Islamism 545=546
People of the Book 548
Persian language and
literature 550
politics and Islam 556
Qadiri Sufi Order 563-564
RP 582-583
tekke 666

Webb, Alexander Russell

709

Turkish language and literature
103. 675-676

Twelve-Imam Shiism xxvi, xliic,
676-682, 678
adhan 13
ahl a I -bay t 23

ayatollah 78
bat in 95

Bektashi Sufi Order 99
Constitutional Revolution
L64

daawa 177
faith 224
ghayba 259
Gulf States 27H2Z1
ijmaa 345-346
ijtihad 347
India 350
Iran 362

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365-366
Iraq 367

Jaafar al-Sadiq 387
Kashmir 425
Muhammad al-Mahdi 497
Pakistan 543
Safavid dynasty 598
shahada 619
sharia 620
Shariati, Ali 622
Shiism 624
tawhid 665
ulama 683
Usuli School 699
walaya 707

U

ulama xxui, 683-685
Umar ibn al-Khattab xxxviic,
685-686

Ali ibn Abi Talib 33
Black Stone 108
caliph 125
Emigrants 213
Hijra 299
Iraq 368
Israel 380
Jerusalem 394
Quran 573
sunna 644

Uthman ibn Affan 700
Umar Tal 686
Umayyad Caliphate xxxi,
xxxvix, xxxviiic. 686-687
Abbasid Caliphate 1=2
Ali ibn Abi Talib 33
Andalusia 42
Arabic language and
literature 53
Bukhara 117
Cairo 120
caliphate 126
Cordoba 167
daawa L77
Damascus 181
Emigrants 213
Europe 218
Fatimid dynasty 231
fiqh 238

fitna 241,242
Granada 267
Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi
Talib 319

Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad
ibn Said 331
Ibn Kathir, Imad al-Din
334

India 352
Israel 381
Jaafar al-Sadiq 386
justice 417
Kaaba 420
Mahdi 447
Quraysh 575
renewal and reform
movements 586
Saudi Arabia 607
Shiism 624, 626
Twelve-Imam Shiism 6Z7
umma xxv, 687-690
Umm Kulthoum 690
umra 690-691
United Nations (UN)
children 137
Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al
Saud 234
Gulf States 27J
Gulf Wars 273, 274
human rights 314
Husayni, Muhammad Amin
al- 318
Iran 364
Israel 382
Kashmir 427
law. international 440
Lebanon 442
Libya 443
QIC 534
PLO 544

World Muslim Congress
714

United States xxii, xxvii, xlvic,
xlviiic, 691-696, 692-695
Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud 2
Abd al- Rahman, Umar 4
Afghanistan 16
Afghan mujahidin 16
Arab-lsraeli conflicts 56
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Fellowship 95, 96
cinema 148
comic strips and comic
books 159

Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al
Saud 234
F1A 236
halal 284

Haqqani, Muhammad
Nazim al- 290
Hekmatyar. Gulbuddin 296
holidays 306
human rights 315
Husayn, Saddam 316

750 Encyclopedia of Islam

United States (continued)

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-Din
326

Id al-Adha 342
Iran 363,364
Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365
Iraq 371

Islamic Society of North
America 375
Ismaili Shiism 377
Israel 382, 383
Khomeini, Ruhollah 435
minaret 475
Mohammad Rcza Pahlavi
478

MPAC 508, 509
MSA 509-510
Mujahidin-i Khalq 499
Nation of Islam 520
oil 532
Pakistan 542
Philippines 553
PLO 544
al-Qaida 564-566
Qutb, Sayyid 576
Ramadan 581
Rushdie, Salman 594
secularism 610
suicide 642

Webb, Alexander Russell
708-709

university 696-697, 721
Usama bin Ladin xxvii, 697,
697-699

Afghan mujahidin 16
Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin 296
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab,
Muhammad 325
jihad movements 399
kafir 422

Muslim Brotherhood 508
al-Qaida 564, 565
Qutb, Sayyid 576
Salafism 602
Saudi Arabia 608
Taliban 658-659
umma 689
Wahhabism 706
Usman Dan Fodio xliiic, 203,
630, 700

Usuli School 699

Akhhari School 27
ayatollah 78
ijtihad 347
Iraq 367
mujahid 500
sharia 620
Shiism 625

Twelve-Imam Shiism 679
Uthman ibn Affan xxxviiic,
700-701

Ali ibn Abi Talib 33
caliph 125

Emigrants 213
fitna 241
holy books 308
Libya 443
Quran 573
Shiism 624
Umayyad Caliphate
686-687

Uzbekistan 15,83,93,117,
304, 424-425

V

veil 119,291,292,297-298,
702-703, 711-713
vizier 644, 703

W

Wahhabism xliiic, xlvc, 704-
706, 705

Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud 2
Abou El Fadl, Khaled 8
Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad
92, 93
bidaa 101
Gulf States 270
Gulf Wars 277
Flanbali Legal School 288
holidays 306
Husayniyya 321
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

Muhammad 324-325
Ibn Idris, Ahmad 332
Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din
Ahmad 339-340
mawlid 464
Mecca 468
miracle 476, 477
Muslim Brotherhood 506,
508

Muslim World League
511

oil 533

politics and Islam 556
saint 599
Salafism 601-602
Saudi Arabia 606
soul and spirit 633
Sufism 640
ziyara 724
walaya 598. 706-707
wali 464, 598. 639, 707-708
Webb, Alexander Russell
708-709

West Africa xxvii, 709-710
Bamba, Ahmadu 86
Hijra 299
Ibn Battuta 330
mujahid 498
Timbuktu 670-671
Westernization 710-711
women 510, 711, 711-713
abortion 7

African languages and
literatures 19
Arabic language and
literature 55
Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal
69

authority 74
autobiography 76
Bahai Faith 85
Bangladesh 88
biography 103
birth control and family
planning 105
birth rites 106
blood 110
burqa 119
C1E 169
Crusades 175
customary law 176
daawa 178
divorce 200
education 210
Europe 220
Farrakhan, Louis 227
fitna 242

funerary' rituals 251
Fyzec, Asaf Ali Asghar
253

Ghazali, Zaynab al- 262-
263

hadith 279
haram 290
harem 291-292
hijah 297-298
honor and shame 309
hour! 310-311
houses 312, 313
human rights 314.315
Husayniyya 321
Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi al-
Din 326

Ibn Hazm. Ali ibn Ahmad
ibn Said 331,332
Id al-Adha 342
Id al-Fitr 343
imam 348
India 350

Iranian Revolution (1978-
1979) 365,366
Islamism 376
Jamaat-i Islami 388
Jordan 408
Mar) r 460

Mawdudi, Abu al-Ala 464
Mecca 467
Mernissi, Fatima 471
Mohammad Rcza Pahlavi
478

Muslim Brotherhood
506-507
prayer 557-558

prophets and prophelhood
559-560
purdah 561

Rabia al-Adawiyya 578
RP 583

Saudi Arabia 608
Shaarawi, Huda al- 613
Tunisia 673
ulama 684
United States 693
veil 702

Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi
Talib 720-721

World Muslim Congress 714
World Trade Center attacks
(9/11/2001). Sec September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks
World War I
AIML 35
Armenians 63
Damascus 181
Husayn ibn Ali 318
Iraq 370

Ottoman dynasty 540
pan-Islamism 546
Qajar dynasty 567
Rashid Rida, Muhammad
582

Syria 648

Y

Yemen 104,312,715-716,

719, 720

Yom Kippur War. Sec Arab-
Isracli War (1973)

Yunus Emre xlic, 717

Z

zakat. See almsgiving
Zamzam 9,281,419,465,466,
691, 718-719
Zaydi Shiism 626, 715,

719- 720

Zaynab bint Ali ibn Abi Talib
265,306,319, 320, 622,

720- 721

Zaytuna Mosque 721-722
Zionism

Arab-Israeli conflicts 56
colonialism 157
communism 161
Hamas 286

Husayni, Muhammad Amin
al- 317,318
Israel 382,383
Jerusalem 396
Judaism and Islam 413
Palestine 543

Ziyara 343-344, 423, 464, 558.
599, 722-724, 723